The Book of Shadows, Truths and Lies
by Lacey Cordelle
Summary: Alright, it's another VA reading VA story. However, this one has a twist! The books are in the future! Watch how Rose, Lissa, Dimitri, Adrian, Christian, Eddie, Sydney, Mia, Janine and Abe react to hearing their future. See how the get along when they don't have the same circumstances pushing them together as they did in the books. And watch as hilarity ensues!
1. Prolouge

I sighed and flopped on my bed, glad to be back after a day of school. Lissa dropped down on her own and immediately closed her eyes. Even after a year and a half in the human world, she still wasn't used to being in the sun all day. I felt bad for her.

I flipped on the TV and closed my own eyes. I was really tired today, though I couldn't put a finger on why. I only allowed myself to fall into the lull of sleep _after _I heard Lissa's breathing even out. When I let myself go, the sweet blackness of sleep rose up and smothered me without having to be asked twice.

That night, I dreamed for the first time in weeks. And what I dreamed about was something that hadn't shown up in my dreams for almost a year.

I dreamed about the people we'd left behind at St. Vladimir's. Mason was there, with his messy red hair. Eddie was also there, and Lissa's old boyfriend, Aaron. Alberta was in the dream, and Kirova. The weirdest part, though, was that there were people in the dream that I didn't recognize, people I didn't know.

There was a Moroi with emerald green eyes and a really tall dhampir with shoulder-length brown hair and deep brown eyes.

In the dream, only ten minutes had passed before I woke up. I left my eyes closed, listening to the pleasant sound of Lissa's light snoring. Then I froze. Why did I hear more than just Lissa snoring? It sounded like there was seven or eight other people in the room.

I opened my eyes. We weren't in our room in Portland. I didn't know where we were.

"Hello, Rose," came a soft voice from the corner.

I sat bolt upright, looking frantically around the room for the speaker. Then I spotted her.

She had red hair and green eyes. She was a Moroi, her pale skin almost luminescent in the pale sunlight that managed to struggle its way in through the heavily tinted window. Why she was here was still a mystery.

Her eyes widened. "Wow. You look just like I imagined."

"Who the hell are you?" I asked bluntly.

"My name is Richelle Mead," she said.

I frowned. "Okay . . . that's great. What I meant was: Why are you here? And why am I here?"

"Oh. I'm just here to ensure that everyone who needs to be here gets here. As well as to drop this off. This is why you're here." She held up a box.

At that moment, the door to the room opened, and two dhampirs carried in a sleeping body. I was shocked when I realize who that body was.

It was Eddie Castile. He was a novice guardian at St. Vlads.

My eyes widened and I looked back at the woman, Richelle. She bobbed her head approvingly. "And that's everyone. I get to leave now. Which is something you guys don't get to do until you read all of these." She chucked the box at me.

I caught it, surprised at the weight. The what she said hit me.

"What do you mean, we can't leave?" I asked suspiciously.

She frowned. "Too convoluted?" she asked, shrugging. "I mean you are stuck here. You can't leave, so don't even bother trying."

My eyes narrowed. "How is that possible?"

I went to the door and tugged it open. Outside it was a luxury living room with a massive king-sized bed and leather furniture. There was an entertainment unit and a mini-fridge, and a great big window. There were a couple doors leading to other rooms, but I didn't bother with those.

I went out into the living room and went up to what I assumed was the front door. It was big and metal, and required a code to open. There was no way we were getting out.

I turned and went up to the window I'd noticed in my initial inspection. Outside, the mansion — and I could tell from how high up we were and how big the estate was that it _was_ a mansion — was surrounded with a hedge-maze, and beyond that was miles and miles of empty space. It was worse than Montana! Nope. There was no way we could get out, and even if we could, there was no where we could go.

I looked to my right, and was shocked to realize there was someone asleep in the big bed. It was the dhampir from my dream! The tall one.

I could see now, looking at him, that he was even taller than I'd thought. He was probably six-six or six-seven, with the same shoulder-length brown hair. I knew that if he opened his eyes, they would be a beautiful chocolate brown.

I returned to the bedroom to find Lissa waking up and Richelle nowhere in sight. Liss rubbed her eyes as I looked around the room. There was a total of nine beds — the room was massive — and each of them held a sleeping person, except for the one I'd gotten out of. Well, and the one Lissa was sitting up in now, but that was only because she was awake, not asleep. I confuse even myself.

Lissa frowned. "Where are we?" she asked.

"Who the hell knows," I muttered.

I studied the people in the beds. Eddie was there, of course. So was my mom (what the hell?), and Christian Ozera (um, ditto!), but the other four I didn't know.

I hadn't seen my mother in years. She wasn't around while I was growing up. She'd given me to the Academy to have them raise me from the time I was two, so that was why it shocked me so much to see her here.

And as for Christian . . . He was known around the Academy because his parents chose to go Strigoi, and he was really antisocial. What was he doing here? Well, obviously he was here to read the books, but I mean why was _he _specifically here? We'd probably hung out with just about _everyone _at the school than we had with him.

Then there were the people I didn't know. There was one girl who looked to be about eleven, hair in perfect ringlets even as she slept.

There was a guy who looked to be twenty one — the Moroi guy from my dream! He had sandy hair and smelled of smoke and alcohol. I could smell it even from here.

Then there was another girl, but this one was human. What the hell? She rolled over, sighing in her sleep, and I noticed an odd, shimmering gold tattoo on her cheek. No clue why she was here . . .

And finally was another guy, sleeping in a suit that still looked freshly ironed, a flashy scarf around his neck and a flashier handkerchief in his pocket. He looked Turkish to me.

Lissa swung her legs over the edge of the bed just as I sat down on the one I'd woken up in. I'd set the package there before I'd raced out to the other room. Now I picked it up and ripped off the tape.

"What's that?" Lissa asked.

I shrugged. "That's what I'm trying to find out."

She moved to sit next to me as I lifted the cardboard flaps. I had an idea what was in here, and when the items came into sight, I was right.

"Books," I stated unnecessarily.

"Who's got some books?" came a groggy voice. I whipped my head around to see Christian Ozera sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

He blinked to full wakefulness, then noticed his surroundings. "What the _fuck_?" He looked at us, opening his mouth to say something that I'm sure was going to be snarky. Then he did a double take. "Lissa? Rose?" We nodded.

"Ugh, what the hell happened last night?" That came from the unknown Moroi with the emerald eyes. "Suzy?" He didn't seem at all sure that the name of the girl he'd apparently been with last night was, in fact, Suzy.

He was obviously a womanizer, so I slurred, "The name's Rose, darling."

"Rose?" he said, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. I chuckled to myself.

He opened his eyes. "Where the hell have I gotten myself this time?" he muttered. I laughed.

"So, what's your name?" I asked, no longer slurring my words.

His brow furrowed. "Adrian. Adrian Ivashkov."

"Rose Hathaway," I told him, shaking his hand. He raised his eyebrows, looking me up and down.

"Then again, it might not be so bad," he said, nodding appreciatively.

I rolled my eyes. Yep, I had this guy pegged.

If I hadn't been so tense, I wouldn't have heard the shifting of cloth that signaled yet another person getting up. I think this had been planned so we all woke up at the same time.

I turned my head, and saw the Turkish man sitting up in his bed. My mother sat up soon after. She looked at him, her eyes wide. "Abe?"

He stared at her. "Janine?"

I stared at them both. "How do you know each other?"

They shifted their attention to me. "Rose?" my mother asker.

"Guardian Hathaway?" That was Lissa.

"Vasilisa Dragomir?" That was the Turkish dude. Abe, I guess.

"What the hell?" We all looked over to see Eddie sitting up.

Emerald-Eyes — Adrian — put a hand to his forehead. "I'm so confused."

There was a moan, and the human threw an arm over her eyes. "Go away guys," she muttered.

Adrian raised an eyebrow. "Wonder what she usually wakes up to," he mused.

She bolted upright when she heard the unfamiliar voice, looking around. "Who on earth are you guys?"

Abe lifted an eyebrow. "We could ask you the same thing."

"What I want to know . . ." I tuned them out while I grabbed the box and headed out to the living room.

The tall, hot guy was still asleep. I crept over to him, wondering who he was. He certainly did look pretty amazing as he slept, he face free of worries. He was a dhampir, and looked to be in his mid-twenties, so I was pretty sure he was a guardian. I walked around to the other side of the bed and slowly reached out to brush the hair off the back of his neck. Sure enough, a promise mark rested there, along with six _molnija_ marks.

My eyes widened. _Six_? That was a lot. _This dude must really be a bad-ass_, I thought to myself.

I backed away from him and sat on one of the leather chairs, making sure to position myself in a way that no noise erupted when I lowered myself down.

I set the box on my lap and opened it again, then pulled out the six books that lay inside. Ugh. She wanted us to read. She kidnaped us to have us read. Wow.

I opened the cover of the one that had been on the top. Inside was a note, although there wasn't much on it. It was just a list. A list that I assumed was the order the books were supposed to be read in. I held the first one in my hands.

I flipped it over to the back and read it to myself. Great. It's about Lissa and me.

Frowning, I flipped to a few random pages and read a few lines. "What the hell?" I whispered to myself. "I don't recognize this."

I flipped to a spot in the middle, and was surprised to find another piece of paper pressed between the pages. I pulled it open and read it.

_Moroi, dhampirs, and Alchemist,_

_By now I'm sure you've realized these books are written in the point of view of our beloved Rose. I'm sure you've also realized that these books are set in the future. It might have seemed like a load of BS at first, but once you've heard your own thoughts and views told back to you in the writing, you'll know it's not._ _Of course, I know you're reading this before the books, Rose, so this is the reason I'm even writing this. That should answer everything you've been wondering._

_~ Richelle Mead_

Huh. Alright then. I guess that explains why I didn't recognize anything I'd read. I just had a gut feeling she was telling the truth about this being our future, though. The fact that she somehow knew that I'd be reading this before reading the actual book helped.

There was a grunt behind me, and something muttered in Russian. I stood and whirled to face the no-longer-sleeping man in one fluid motion. He was sitting up, his eyes still closed, and as I watched, he swung his legs over to where the edge of a single sized bed would be, but he was sitting on a king-sized bed, so he ended up just laying his legs flat at a ninety degree angle.

His eyes flew open, and his hand automatically reached to his belt for his stake. He'd been asleep in his jeans and t-shirt, so it was still there. That was lucky for him. If he'd been in pyjamas, he probably would have put the stake under his pillow, and then he wouldn't have had it with him.

"Hi," I said, my voice stopping just short of _squeaky_.

His brow furrowed. "Who are you?" His voice held a faint Russian accent. I held in a blissful sigh at how awesome he seemed to be.

"I'm Rose Hathaway," I told him.

"Hathaway?" He blinked, relaxing slightly. "Janine's daughter? The one who ran away from St. Vladimir's Academy?"

I bobbed my head. "The one and only. Who are you?"

"Dimitri Belikov," he told me, looking at me disapprovingly. Guess he didn't like my having run away. That's alright. Neither did I, but I'd done what I had to in order to keep Lissa safe.

Just then, Lissa herself slipped out of the bedroom. "There you are!" she said. "Jeeze, things are getting weird in there. Any idea who those people are? I can't believe — oh, hello." She'd spotted the guardian sitting in the bed.

"Hello," he said formally. Oh. So he was one of _those _guardians. "You must be Princess Vaslisa Dragomir."

She nodded, then frowned. "Who are you?"

He looked up to the heavens with resignation. "You said there's more people in that room?" He pointed to the door she'd come out of, and she nodded again. "Good. Why don't you go get them all to come out here, and we can do group introductions, instead of having to repeat ourselves a million times." Lissa shrugged and left to do as he'd suggested.

I met his eyes, and he ran a hand through his hair in an attempt to straighten it, not that it was necessary. He sighed and gestured to the chair I'd been sitting in.

"Why don't you sit back down? I have a feeling we're going to be here for a while."

I shrugged and sat, watching as he managed to fold his giant frame into the chair, setting his ankle on his other knee. We waited in awkward silence until everyone from the bedroom emerged and found seats of their own. Then the silence was even more awkward.

"Why don't we go around the room and introduce ourselves?" Lissa suggested, gesturing around the room and sneaking curious glances at the strangers.

That was the difference between her and me. She snuck glances — I stared blatantly. Most of my attention went to the Turkish guy my mother seemed so familiar with. It made me wonder . . . I'd been told my father was Turkish.

Everyone looked at everyone else, waiting for someone to speak up. Never one to be afraid of unfamiliar people, I decided I would.

"I'm Rose Hathaway," I said with a wave.

My mother gave me a dry look. "I think we all know who you are."

I huffed. "Fine. You go then."

She shrugged. "I'm Janine Hathaway. Please don't stone me for bringing Rose into the world." She shot me a mocking look.

The Turkish guy next to her spoke up. "My name is Ibrahim Mazur." He didn't sound very threatening, but there was a twinkle in his eye that made me nervous. "Call me Abe," he continued, before looking to Emerald-Eyes, who sat on his left.

"I'm Adrian Ivashkov," he said, winking at me. I rolled my eyes. I was used to guys hitting on me, and they were all the same. Players.

"I'm Christian Ozera." He was sitting next to Adrian, and looked bored. I didn't know how he could possibly be so unconcerned about being stuck here.

"I'm Mia Rinaldi." She was looking at her nails, trying to appear as okay with all this as Christian. It wasn't working.

"I'm Sydney," the human said, casting frightened glances at the other occupants of the room. As she shifted her face, I noticed something shimmering on her cheek. After closer inspection, I realized it was a tattoo done in gold. Why anyone would get a tattoo in gold . . . ? Who knows?

Lissa was next. "I'm Lissa," she said, careful to put emphasis on the nickname, trying to get it across to people not to call her by her full first name.

"Eddie." He saluted while giving his name, giving a lopsided smile. I'd already gone, so we skipped me and went right to the Russian.

"And I'm Dimitri Belikov." He was the last to go. "Now, care to explain why we're here?" he asked, looking at me.

I inclined my head. "We're here to read some books." I made a face.

Christian glared at me. "What? You've _got_ to be kidding me."

I shook my head, pulling out the box the books sat in. "Sadly, no. There's a note. You want me to read it?"

The Mia girl raised an eyebrow. "Duh."

I rolled my eyes and read it out loud. Eddie burst out laughing. "In your point of view! Wow, this'll be fun." I stuck my tongue out at him.

"It's in the future? How is that possible? Has she actually said things that prove it's in the future?" Janine asked.

I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. She knew I'd read it first."

Lissa spoke up. "Two things. One: what's an alchemist? And two: who's Richelle Mead?"

The human raised her hand. "I'm an alchemist."

"And Richelle's the author of the books," I added, still curious what exactly an alchemist was. I figured we'd probably learn it in the books.

"Should we just start reading them?" Abe asked.

Janine nodded. "Let's just start at the first chapter. Why bother reading the back? We already know what it's about, more or less. Our future. In Rose's point of view."

"Okay, who wants to read?" Lissa asked.

"Rose should," Eddie said. "It's in her point of view. And she's already got the book in her hand."

I sighed, but agreed. "Alright then. Vampire Academy. Chapter one."


	2. Chapter 1

_**I felt her fear before I heard her screams.**_

"Okay, that's frightening," I said. Lissa shrugged and gestured for me to keep going.

_**Her nightmare pulsed into me,**_

Everyone in the room looked puzzled. No one knew about the psychic bond Liss and I shared. It was our not-so-little secret. Or, at least, it had been, until now.

_**shaking me out of my own dream, which had something to do with a beach and some hot guy rubbing suntan oil on me.**_

Adrian raised an eyebrow. "Nice."

My mother looked disapproving.

_**Images — hers, not mine — tumbled through my mind:**_

The puzzled looks deepened. No doubt they were wondering if I was crazy. I sometimes wondered too.

_**fire and blood, the smell of smoke, the twisted metal of a car.**_

Lissa shuddered, and I reached over Eddie to pat her knee. He looked at us sympathetically before standing and switching spots with me. I put my arm around Lissa and kept reading.

_**The pictures wrapped around me, suffocating me, until some rational part of my brain reminded me this wasn't **_**my**_** dream.**_

Eddie snorted. "Rose? Rational?" I glared at him.

Lissa shuddered again. She'd been having this same dream that was being described a lot recently. I guess that was proof enough for her that this woman wasn't a fake. I hugged her closer to me.

_**I woke up, strands of long, dark hair sticking to my forehead.**_

Everyone turned to stare at my hair. I brushed it behind my ear self-consciously.

_**Lissa lay in her bed, thrashing and screaming. I bolted out of mine, quickly crossing the few feet that separated**_ _**us**_.

"What do you wear to bed?" Adrian asked, a wistful look on his face. "Let me guess. A cute little bra and some silk shorts?"

"Pig," I muttered, even though that _was _a pretty accurate description of my pyjamas.

"I'm just trying to help everyone visualize it," he defended. I rolled my eyes.

"_**Liss," I said, shaking her. "Liss, wake up."**_

It was hard to remember that this was actually my future, not just a random book I was reading. Not that I often read randomly. In fact, it was incredibly rare to find me with a book. But it still felt weird, knowing that eventually all this was going to happen.

_**Her screams dropped off, replaced by soft whimpers. "Andre," she moaned. "Oh God."**_

Abe frowned. "Who's Andre?"

I waved his question off. "I'm sure you'll find out."

_**I helped her sit up. "Liss, you aren't there anymore. Wake up."**_

_**After a few moments, her eyes fluttered open, and in the dim lighting, I could see a flicker of consciousness**_ _**start to take over. Her frantic breathing slowed, and she leaned into me, resting her head against my shoulder. I put an arm around her and ran a hand over her hair.**_

"Aw," the alchemist cooed. I raised my eyebrows, but kept reading.

"_**It's okay," I told her gently. "Everything's okay."**_

Lissa received sympathetic looks from everyone around the room.

"_**I had that dream."**_

"_**Yeah, I know."**_

_**We sat like that for several minutes, not saying anything else. When I felt her emotions calm down, I leaned over to the night stand between our beds and turned on the lamp. It glowed dimly, but neither of us really needed much to see by. Attracted by the light, our housemate's cat, Oscar, leapt up onto the sill of the window.**_

No one could really think of anything to say to that. I think most of us spent a lot of time internalizing what was sure to be our future. It's not everyday you get to find out what you're going to do in a year, or any given period of time.

_**He gave me a wide berth — animals don't like dhampirs, for whatever reason —**_

"Are you going to spend the whole time telling us things we already know, little dhampir?" Adrian commented dryly.

"It's not my fault that the author has to describe it and give the reader a background. Most humans don't know about us," I replied.

"And they're lucky," Sydney muttered under her breath.

"What was that, Australia?" Adrian asked.

"Nothing," she said quickly. "Keep reading."

_**but jumped onto the bed and rubbed his head against Lissa, purring softly. Animals didn't have a problem with Moroi, and they all loved Lissa in particular.**_

I smiled at her. "Of course they do. Who wouldn't love you?"

Christian snorted. "Did you two become lesbians while you were gone?"

I glared at him. "No. You can say you love your friends. It's a different kinda love. Not like that's a subject _you _would know anything about."

He flinched, and I realized a tad too late that was an incredibly hurtful thing to say. It sounded more clever in my head than it did out loud. He snarled at me, and I shot him a guilty look before continuing reading.

_**Smiling, she scratched his chin, and I felt her calm futher.**_

My eyes dropped to the next line. _Shit._ This book certainly did give away our secrets. I gulped and kept going.

"_**When did we last do a feeding?" I asked,**_

Janine shot up in outrage. "Please tell me you're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting."

I glanced up at her with an even guiltier expression than I'd had for Christian. While I did, my eyes flicked to the Russian for a moment, taking in his disapproving frown. For some reason, that hurt more than anything my mother could say.

I kept reading, hoping she'd be too interested in hearing what happened next to question me about it.

_**studying her face. Her fair skin was paler than usual. Dark circles hung under her eyes, and there was an air of frailty about her. School had been hectic this week, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd given her blood.**_

I flinched when I read that, but couldn't help the passing thought that flitted through my mind. _School. Pfft. Since when have I cared about that?_

I moved on as fast as possible, hoping no one would listen to this next page to closely. I don't think I had that great luck.

"_**It's been like . . . more than two days, hasn't it? Three? Why didn't you say anything?"**_

_**She shrugged and wouldn't meet my eyes. "You were busy. I didn't want to—"**_

"_**Screw that," I said,**_

"Gladly," Adrian said, grinning cockily. I was starting to almost hope he ended up killed in these books. That might be funny. Nah, not even I would do that to someone.

_**shifting into a better position.**_

Adrian opened his mouth to make some sort of comment, but Abe silenced him with a look.

_**No wonder she seemed so weak. Oscar, not wanting me any closer, leapt down and returned to the window, where he could watch at a safe distance.**_

It was interesting to know that we were still going to be in the same house in six months.

"_**Come on. Let's do this."**_

"_**Rose—"**_

It was weird to say my own name aloud. It wasn't something I really did often. Though I guess it was probably weirder for everyone else, hearing someone's thoughts on them.

"_**Come **_**on**_**. It'll make you feel better."**_

"Sounds like someone really wants to do this," Adrian muttered. I wondered how much trouble I'd be in if I punched him, just once.

_**I tilted my head and tossed my hair back, baring my neck. I saw her hesitate, but the sight of my neck and what it offered proved too powerful.**_

It kinda sucked to know that she was still going to try to resist her basic needs, even after another six months. It bugged me that she wouldn't just accept it as necessary, and not worry about me. I wished she'd just get over it.

_**A hungry expression crossed her face, and her lips parted slightly, exposing the fangs she normally kept hidden while living with humans. Those fangs contrasted oddly with the rest of her features. With her pretty face and pale blond hair, she looked more like an angel than a vampire.**_

All eyes turned to Lissa. A pink flush crept up her cheeks, and I bobbed my head. The book was right. She most certainly did look more angelic than vampiric.

_**As her teeth neared my bare skin,**_

I flinched as my eyes flitted over the next part, but continued going.

_**I felt my heart race with a mix of fear and anticipation. I always hated feeling the latter, but it was nothing I could help, a weakness I couldn't shake.**_

Adrian clucked his tongue, causing me to look up. My mother was glaring at me with disgust, Dimitri watching me with disapproval. Again. Abe looked like he thought I should know better, and Sydney looked down right terrified, shying away from Lissa and me. Thankfully, no one had said anything yet, so I got back to the book before they could.

_**Her fangs bit into me, hard, and I cried out at the brief flare of pain. Then it faded, replaced by a wonderful, golden joy that spread through my body.**_

Janine shot up at that. "What! Do not tell me I gave birth to a blood whore!"

I cringed guiltily. She glared at me.

"Sit down, Janine. The sooner we get these over with, the sooner we can leave," Abe said. I still didn't know who the hell he was, but I was grateful to him for defending me. Not that I said that or anything.

My mom glared at the room, but sat down and waited for me to continue.

_**It was better than any of the times I'd been drunk or high.**_

And she was back on her feet. "You've been drunk and high!" she screeched. I flinched, before remembering that I'm Rose Hathaway. I don't take this shit. I fight back.

"You know, they say people who have daddy issues are more likely to do that kinda thing. Considering I don't even _know_ my dad, it's not that surprising, is it? And I'm thinking that mommy issues fit under the same category." I glared at her.

This time_ she _flinched. It was weird, though. Abe flinched too. A frown passed over my face; I forced it off.

I glanced back down at the page, then cringed when I read the next line. The way it was worded made it sound worse than it was. Ugh.

_**Better than sex —**_

"_What!_" She had gone supersonic now.

"Ooo, experienced, are we, Little Dhampir?"

I glared at them both. "Let me finish."

_**or so I imagined, since I'd never done it.**_

Lissa beamed at me. I laughed. Janine calmed down a bit after that, sitting back down. Adrian looked disappointed.

_**It was a blanket of pure, refined pleasure, wrapping me up and promising everything would be right in the world.**_

"So that's what it's like," Lissa mumbled. I smiled dryly and nodded.

_**On and on it went. The chemicals in her saliva triggered an endorphin rush, and I lost track of the world, lost track of who I was.**_

_**Then, regretfully, it was over.**_

"Regretfully?" Mia asked, shooting a glance at my mother. She was just _trying_ to get me in trouble. I glared at her, not bothering to respond.

_**It had taken less than a minute.**_

"That's it? All that description for less than a minute?" Christian smirked. I turned my glare to him.

_**She pulled back, wiping her hand across her lips as she studied me. "You okay?"**_

"_**I . . . yeah." I lay back on the bed, dizzy from the blood loss. "I just need to sleep it off. I'm fine."**_

"So now I finally know that you really _are _lying when you say stuff like that to me!" Lissa exclaimed.

I grinned sheepishly at her, shrugging.

_**Her pale, jade-green eyes watched me with concern. She stood up. "I'm going to get you something to eat."**_

"Mmmm . . . food." My stomach rumbled to accent my statement.

Liss laughed. "After this chapter, Rose, we'll make something to eat."

I flashed a grin at her.

_**My protests came awkwardly to my lips, and she left before I could get out a sentence. The buzz from her bite had lessened as soon as she broke the connection, but some of it still lingered in my veins, and I felt a goofy smile come across my lips.**_

Christian snorted.

_**Turning my head, I glanced up at Oscar, still sitting in the window.**_

"Really? Who names their cat _Oscar_? That's just stupid. Oscar is the name of a trash eating monster." Mia stuck out her tongue.

Adrian snickered. "Oscar the Grouch. What a great guy," he said nostalgically. "I miss him. And the whole gang!"

I shot a confused look at the Moroi that I was quickly deeming as just a little strange, but returned to the book.

"_**You don't know what you're missing," I told him.**_

Christian stared at me. "You're talking. To a cat." His eyes narrowed. "Why?"

I shrugged. "Maybe he'd like me more if he got to know me."

Mia glanced up from her nails for moment to regard me with raised eyebrows. "I really don't think so," she told me. Harsh.

_**His attention was on something outside. Hunkering down into a crouch, he puffed out his jet-black fur. His tail started twitching.**_

I thought of Oscar back in Portland, trying to think of what could set him off like that. I had an idea forming in my mind, and I didn't like where it was headed.

_**My smile faded, and I forced myself to sit up.**_

I caught Lissa's look of disapproval out of the corner of my eye.

_**The world spun, and I waited for it to right itself before trying to stand. When I managed it, the dizziness set in again and this time refused to leave.**_

"Rose . . ." Lissa's tone was laced with warning. I cringed guiltily.

_**Still, I felt okay enough to stumble to the window and peer out with Oscar. He eyed me warily, scooted over a little, and then returned to whatever had held his attention.**_

People were starting to listen with rapt attention now, getting caught up in the story. Is it still considered a story if it's going to come true? I wasn't sure. I didn't read often enough to make sense of something like that.

_**A warm breeze — unseasonably**_ _**warm for a Portland fall — **_

"Portland!" my mother exclaimed. "That's where you've been hiding!"

I looked up, realizing with surprise that she hadn't known that, then feeling chagrined that the stupid book had just revealed our top-secret location.

The Dimitri guy looked like he was taking mental notes to use whenever we finally got out of here.

_**played with my hair as I leaned out. The street was dark and relatively quiet. It was three in the morning, about the only time a college campus settled down, at least somewhat.**_

"A college campus? That's where you've been all this time?" That came from Eddie, who looked a little hurt.

"Uh, yeah."

He looked at me sadly. "We missed you, you know."

I shifted awkwardly, not sure what to say to such a heartfelt statement. I hadn't really thought about how our leaving would affect others. I'd just been so focused on getting Lissa to safety. Without anything to say, I shot him as sorry a look as I could manage and returned my attention to the book.

_**The house in which we'd rented a room for the past eight months sat on a residential street with old, mismatched houses.**_

_Eight months_. That meant this was six months in the future. Well, nice to know we'd still be on our own in six months, but since this book seemed to be headed away from that, and judging by who was gathered here for the reading, it didn't seem like we'd be free for much longer than that.

_**Across the road, a steetlight flickered, nearly ready to burn out. It still cast enough light for me to make out the shapes of cars and buildings. In our own yard, I could see the silhouettes of trees and bushes.**_

_**And a man watching me.**_

There were gasps around the room. Sydney cringed, and I wondered again what she was doing here.

_**I jerked back in surprise. A figure stood by a tree in the yard, about thirty feet away, where he could easily see through the window. He was close enough that I probably could have thrown something and hit him.**_

Adrian burst out laughing. When he realized he was the only one and that everyone was staring at him, he calmed down and stared back. After an adequate pause, I started reading again.

_**He was certainly close enough that he could have seen what Lissa and I had just done.**_

_**The shadows covered him so well that even with my heightened sight, I couldn't make out any of his features, save for his height. He was tall. Really tall.**_

My gaze slid over to Dimitri. He was really tall. Hmm . . .

_**He stood there for just a moment, barely discernible, and then stepped back, disappearing into the shadows cast by the trees on the far side of the yard. I was pretty sure I saw someone else move nearby and join him before the blackness swallowed them both.**_

"Rose . . ." Lissa repeated, this time more with fear than disapproval.

_**Whoever these figures were, Oscar didn't like them. Not counting me, he usually got along with most people, growing upset only when someone posed an immediate danger**_. _**The guy outside hadn't done anything threatening to Oscar, but the cat had sensed something, something that put him on edge.**_

_**Something similar to what he always sensed in me.**_

My suspicion was confirmed. In six months, a dhampir would be standing outside my window. A very tall dhampir. I looked at Dimitri again. Yeah, I didn't like where this seemed to be headed.

_**Icy fear raced through me,**_

I was feeling the same thing right now, and it wasn't even happening yet.

_**almost — but not quite — eradicating the lovely bliss of Lissa's bite.**_

My mother scowled unhappily.

_**Backing up from the window, I jerked on a pair of jeans I found on the floor, nearly falling over in the process.**_

"Yeah, ya did!" Adrian called out. "What were you wearing before that?" he asked, raising and dropping both his eyebrows rapidly. I glared at him.

_**Once they were on, I grabbed my coat and Lissa's, along with our wallets. Shoving my feet into the first shoes I saw, I headed out the door.**_

"What, you don't grab shoes for Lissa, too?" my mother asked.

I looked at her in shock. First she was mad because we'd run away and no one could find us, and now she was mad because I hadn't thought to grab shoes for Lissa while trying to lengthen the time we were away. I didn't understand this woman.

_**Downstairs, I found her in the cramped kitchen, rummaging through the refrigerator. **_

At that thought, my stomach rumbled. I figured I probably hadn't eaten in almost fourteen hours. Maybe longer. I looked between Dimitri and Abe to see the alarm clock. It read 4:35. Of course, since I didn't know where we were, I didn't know what time zone we were in, or even how many days had passed. My internal clock was all messed up, too. But it didn't really matter. I was hungry. After I finished reading, I would find some food.

_**One of our housemates, Jeremy, sat at the table, and on his forehead as he stared sadly at a calculus book. Lissa regarded me with surprise.**_

"_**You shouldn't be up."**_

"_**We have to go. Now."**_

Lissa leaned further into me. I could feel her fear for the future through our bond, and I hugged her tight in reassurance. Whatever would happen, we'd get through it together.

_**Her eyes widened, and then a moment later, understanding clicked in. "Are you . . . really? Are you sure?"**_

_**I nodded. I couldn't explain how I knew for sure. I just did.**_

Adrian looked a little lost. "What exactly is going on right here?"

"We ran away from our academy. Someone has shown up to take us back, apparently," I answered.

"Oh. Well, that's no good."

"You don't say."

_**Jeremy watched us curiously. "What's wrong?"**_

"Oh, for the love of god," my mother said. "Please don't tell me you're going to involve him in this."

A part of me wanted to look guilty, but I wasn't really sure why. I had no more idea what was about to happen than any of the rest of them.

_**An idea came to mind. "Liss, get his car keys."**_

Abe started looking at Lissa in a way I didn't really like. It was appraising, as though she were a purebred dog he was considering purchasing, but wanted to be sure he was getting his money's worth. My eyes narrowed at him.

_**He looked back and forth between us. "What are you—"**_

_**Lissa unhesitatingly walked over to him. Her fear poured into me through our psychic bond,**_

"You're what?" That was Dimitri.

Murmurs rose up around the room, everyone questioning this new information. Everyone except for Abe and Sydney, who both seemed like they had just received a conformation of what they'd already known.

"Shut up so we can hear the rest, will you?" Christian demanded. Everyone quieted down enough for me to continue.

_**but there was something else, too: her complete faith that I would take care of everything, that we would be safe. Like always, I hoped I was worthy of that kind of trust.**_

Lissa stared at me. "You don't think you are?"

"Not always, no."

"Well, you are. I wouldn't trust you so implicitly if you weren't," she told me.

I watched her for a moment, letting her words sink in. After enough time had passed to let her know I appreciated the sentiment, I had to say, "I'm sorry to break the touching moment, but what does implicitly mean?"

The younger people in the room broke out laughing, while the more stoic adults (and Sydney, who hadn't relaxed even a little bit the entire time we'd been here) either rolled their eyes or shook their heads. Or both.

"Implicitly means entirely," Lissa finally explained.

"Oh. Then why don't you just say entirely?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's less poetic, Rose."

My eyes narrowed questioningly. "When did we start writing peotry?"

She laughed. "Just keep reading."

_**She smiled broadly and gazed directly into his eyes. For a moment, Jeremy just stared, still confused, then I saw the thrall seize him. His eyes glazed over, and he regarded her adoringly.**_

Abe was back to the appraising expression. My grip on Lissa's shoulder tightened.

"_**We need to borrow your car," she said in a gentle voice. "Where are your keys?"**_

Janine did not look happy. In fact, she kind of looked like she wanted to beat one of us — probably me — senseless.

_**He smiled, and I shivered. I had a high resistance to compulsion, but I could still feel its effects when it was directed at another person.**_

"Compulsion," Dimitri repeated disapprovingly.

"It was necessary," I said defensively. All he'd said was one word, and yet it made me feel like I wanted to crawl on my knees and beg for his forgiveness. But, I would never do something like that, if only on principal.

_**That, and I'd been taught my entire life that using it was wrong.**_

"Which it is," Dimitri said, my mother nodding along with him. I rolled my eyes.

_**Reaching into his pocket, Jeremy handed over a set of keys hanging on a large red key chain.**_

"_**Thank you," said Lissa.**_

"Ever polite," I said to her. She blushed.

"_**And where is it parked?"**_

"_**Down the street," he said dreamily. "At the corner. By Brown." Four blocks away.**_

"Why would someone park their car four blocks away from where they live?" asked Sydney. I don't think she realized she'd said it out loud. As soon as everyone turned to her, kind of shocked that she'd actually spoken, her eyes widened and she cringed back into the seat she was sitting in. Why was she here, if she was so afraid of us? And what the hell is an alchemist?

"_**Thank you," she repeated, backing up.**_

I shot Lissa a look that said she was far too gracious.

"_**As soon as we leave, I want you to go back to studying. Forget you ever saw us tonight."**_

_**He nodded obligingly. I got the impression he would have walked off a cliff for her right then if she'd asked.**_

"That's strong compulsion," said the Turkish man. I just glared at him.

_**All humans were susceptible to compulsion, but Jeremy appeared weaker than most. That came in handy right now.**_

"_**Come on," I told her. "We've got to move."**_

_**We stepped outside, heading toward the corner he'd named. I was still dizzy from the bite and kept stumbling, unable to move as quickly as I wanted.**_

Lissa looked at me with concern.

_**Lissa had to catch hold of me a few times to stop me from falling.**_

I frowned at book-me. This was not looking good.

_**All the time, that anxiety rushed into me from her mind. I tried my best to ignore it; I had my own fears to deal with.**_

Eddie was totally caught up in the story. His face was intense. Christian looked like he was trying to appear bored, but he was really listening with almost as much interest as Eddie. I couldn't tell if Mia was trying to imitate Christian, or if she really didn't care about what she was hearing. The adults seemed to be interested, but they also looked like they had more important things to be doing than sitting here reading.

"_**Rose . . . what are we going to do if they catch us?" she whispered.**_

Adrenaline flooded through me, and I could feel Lissa's heart pounding where she lay against me.

"_**They won't," I said fiercely. "I won't let them."**_

I had to fight to keep my voice from catching as I read. _Show no weakness._

"_**But if they've found us—"**_

"_**They found us before.**_

My mother's brow furrowed, and Dimitri's lips quirked downward.

_**They didn't catch us then. We'll just drive over to the train station and go to L.A.**_

Dimitri seemed to be taking more mental notes.

_**They'll lose the trail."**_

_**I made it sound simple. I always did, even though there was nothing simple about being on the run from the people we'd grown up with. We'd been doing it for two years,**_

That confirmed the time line I'd already come up with myself.

"Two years," Janine muttered. "How you've been getting away with this little stunt for two years without being found, I will never know."

"Actually, we've only gotten away with this for a year and a half right now," I contradicted.

She glared at me. "Don't be a smart-ass. You know that wasn't the point."

_**hiding wherever we could and just trying to finish high school. Our senior year had just started, and living on a college campus had seemed safe. We were so close to freedom.**_

I almost felt like crying. Knowing we were going to be so close to getting away and yet we would be caught was awful. It was like a kick in the solar plexus, and it drained me of hope.

_**She said nothing more, and I felt her faith in me surge up once more.**_

Since I was pretty sure I knew where this book was going, I knew I really didn't deserve that faith.

_**This was the way it had always been between us. I was the one who took action, who made sure things happened — sometimes recklessly so.**_

"Sometimes?" Lissa and Eddie asked in unison. Then they pointed at each other and laughed.

"Sure, sometimes. Sometimes can be 90 percent of the time just as easily as it could be 40 percent of the time."

They just shook their heads.

_**She was the more reasonable one, the one who thought things out and researched them extensively before acting.**_

I smirked. That was certainly true.

_**Both styles had their uses, but at the moment, recklessness was called for. We didn't have time to hesitate.**_

My muscles tensed as though I was actually trying to get away, and I forced myself to relax. Well, inasmuch as you can when you've been kidnaped to read.

_**Lissa and I had been best friends ever since kindergarten, when our teacher had paired us together for writing lessons. **_

Eddie starting giggling, knowing what was coming.

_**Forcing five-year-olds to spell **_**Vasilisa Dragomir **_**and **_**Rosemarie Hathaway**_** way beyond cruel, and we'd — or rather **_**I'd**_** — responded appropriately.**_

"Oh, god," Janine muttered, putting a hand over her eyes.

_**I'd chucked a book at our teacher and called her a fascist bastard.**_

The entire group laughed, including my mother. Even Dimitri and Sydney managed a chuckle.

_**I hadn't known what those words meant, but I'd known how to hit a moving target.**_

We all laughed harder. I had to pause and hold my sides. Not just because the story was funny, but also because of the hilarity of the laughter of the various people gathered. Dimitri broke into full fledged laughter, and Sydney, while still looking timid, laughed aloud as well.

When we finally settled down, I went on.

_**Lissa and I had been inseparable ever since.**_

"Of course you have," said Eddie, still chuckling.

"_**Do you hear that?" she asked suddenly.**_

_**It took me a few seconds to pick up what her sharper senses already had. Footsteps, moving fast.**_

And just that quick, the tension was back in the room.

_**I grimaced. We had two more blocks to go.**_

Adrian sucked in his breath. "I don't think you're going to make it."

"_**We've got to run for it," I said, catching hold of her arm.**_

"_**But you can't—"**_

"**Run."**

Adrian started singing. _"You're not gonna make it, you're not gonna make it."_ After a couple repetitions, Mia joined in too.

I glared at them both until they quieted down.

_**It took every ounce of my willpower not to pass out on the sidewalk. My body didn't want to run after losing blood or while still metabolizing the effects**_ _**of her saliva.**_

My mother grimaced.

_**But I ordered my muscles to stop their bitching**_

Christian stared at me. "First you were talking to a cat, now you're ordering your muscles around. Wow, Rose. You really are insane."

"Shut up. Just wait 'til I find a part with you in it. Then we'll see who's crazy."

_**and clung to Lissa as our feet pounded against the concrete. Normally I could have outrun her without any extra effort — **_

"At least you could do something," Janine murmured.

_**particularly**_ _**since she was barefoot — **_

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dimitri shake his head in disapproval. I frowned.

_**but tonight, she was all that held me upright.**_

Well, this wasn't making me sound very good.

_**The pursuing footsteps grew louder, closer. Black stars danced before my eyes. Ahead of us, I could make out Jeremy's green Honda. Oh God, if we could just make it — **_

Adrian and Mia took up their chant again. I glared at them again, but it didn't stop them this time.

_**Ten feet from the car, a man stepped directly into our path.**_

"Oooh. . . ." Mia and Adrian chorused. Everyone else was to enraptured in the story to care about them.

_**We came to a screeching halt, and I jerked Lissa back by her arm. It was **_**him**_**, the guy I'd seen across the street watching me. He was older than us, maybe mid-twenties,**_

I cast surreptitious glances at Dimitri. Yep, the age fit.

_**and as tall as I'd figured, probably six-six or six-seven.**_

More glances were cast at the Russian dude. The height fit too.

_**And under different circumstances — say, when he wasn't holding up our desperate escape — I would have thought he was hot.**_

I blushed. That was also accurate.

_**Shoulder-length brown hair, tied back in a short ponytail. Dark brown eyes. A long brown coat — a duster, I thought it was called.**_

Dimitri looked down at himself in surprise, finally realizing it was him who was being described. His cheeks turned red at having been called hot. But whatever embarrassment he was feeling had nothing on what was plaguing me. The others in the room looked between him and me, and a chorus of "ooooh's" rose up.

_**But his hotness was irrelevant now.**_

"Wow," said Christian sardonically. "Rose Hathaway, famed sex kitten, actually is looking past someone's looks."

I could see steam coming out of my mother's ears. "I was not a sex kitten. As it was said earlier, I am a virgin." That caused several cheeks to go a bright pink. Prudes.

_**He was only an obstacle keeping Lissa and me away from the car and our freedom. The footsteps behind us slowed, and I knew our pursuers had caught up. Off to the sides, I detected more movement, more people closing in. God. They'd sent almost a dozen guardians to retrieve us. I couldn't believe it. The queen herself didn't travel with that many.**_

"Wow. You must be fairly important for the academy to send that many for you," said Abe. I didn't think I liked this guy. He crept me out just a little too much.

_**Panicked and not entirely in control of my higher reasoning, I acted out of instinct.**_

"Oh, Rose . . ." I didn't even bother to look up to see who'd said it. I was getting real sick of these people judging me. I think we were going to have to have a little talk later.

_**I pressed up to Lissa, keeping her behind me and away from the man who appeared to be the leader.**_

"_**Leave her alone," I growled. "Don't touch her."**_

"So you're the only one allowed to touch her?" Adrian asked. "That sounds very sexual. Can I get in on that?"

I frowned at him. What a pig.

_**His face was unreadable, but he held out his hands in what was apparently supposed to be some sort of calming gesture, like I was a rabid animal he was planning to sedate.**_

"Hm. Not a bad analogy," Christian said, cocking his head and looking at me.

"Yeah," Mia agreed. "All we need is a little whipped cream."

"Yeah," muttered Adrian sleazily. "That's sounds about right." He raised an eyebrow and smiled slyly, his eyes closing halfway.

"Oh, my god. Can it guys. Or I will hurt you," I told them.

"_**I'm not going to—"**_

_**He took a step forward. Too close.**_

"Rose . . ." Eddie looked pained.

_**I attacked him, leaping out in an offensive maneuver I hadn't used in two years, not since Lissa and I had run away.**_

"You could have at least practiced on your own. . . ." Dimitri muttered under his breath.

I stuck my tongue out at him in place of flipping him off. I wanted to save that for a better time. I'm not one to overuse the flip-off, you know.

_**The move was stupid,**_

"Shocking, Rose did something stupid," Christian said.

_**another reaction born of instinct and fear. And it was hopeless. He was a skilled guardian, not a novice who hadn't finished his training.**_

Several pointed looks were shot in my direction. I ignored them all.

_**He also wasn't weak and on the verge of passing out.**_

This time the look came from Lissa. That one stung a little bit.

_**And man, was he fast. I'd forgotten how fast guardians could be, how they could move and strike like cobras**_.

Sydney looked at Dimitri and Janine with a renewed sense of fear.

_**He knocked me off as though brushing away a fly, and his hands slammed into me and sent me backwards. I don't think he meant to strike that hard**_ — _**probably just intended to keep me away — but my lack of coordination interfered with my ability to respond.**_

Lissa glared at Dimitri, as though he were to blame for everything wrong with the world. I have to admit, I kind of had to agree.

_**Unable to catch my footing, I started to fall, heading straight toward the sidewalk at a twisted angle, hip-first. It was going to hurt. A **_**lot.**

Lissa cringed, and I couldn't help the pained snarl that came over my face. Well, this was going to be fun.

"You know what, I don't think I want to know my future," I said to no one in particular.

"I don't think it matters what you want." Mia's upturned nose was pointed in my direction, as though she thought she was so much better than I was. Who the hell was this bitch? No one I knew.

_**Only it didn't.**_

"Huh?" The confusion was mutual all around the room.

_**Just as quickly as he'd blocked me, the man reached out and caught my arm, keeping me upright.**_

"Aw, how sweet!" Lissa cooed.

I frowned at her. "You do realize that this guy," I nodded down at the book then subtly gestured towards Dimitri, "is trying to capture us and take us back to the academy, right?"

She pursed her lips. "Oh yeah." I shook my head at her.

_**When I'd steadied myself, I noticed he was staring at me — or, more precisely, at my neck. **_

"Your neck? Of all the parts of you to look at, he's looking at your neck?" Of course, that lovely comment came from Adrian. I ignored him.

_**Still disoriented, I didn't get it right away. Then, slowly, my free hand reached up to the side of my throat and lightly touched the wound Lissa had made earlier. When I pulled my fingers back, I saw slick, dark blood on my skin.**_

"Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten about that part." Eddie looked sheepish.

_**Embarrassed, I shook my hair so that it fell forward around my face. My hair was thick and long and completely covered my neck. I'd grown it out for precisely this reason.**_

Everyone's attention turned to my hair again. I nervously twirled it between my fingers.

_**The guy's eyes lingered on the now-covered bite a moment longer and then met mine. I returned his look defiantly and quickly jerked out of his hold.**_

"Defiant. What a good word to describe you, Rose. You summed yourself up in that one sentence." I glared at Christian.

_**He let me go, though I knew he could have restrained me all night long if he'd wanted.**_

Adrian snickered and made an obscene gesture. I told him exactly what he should do with that gesture. Yeah, he stopped after that.

_**Fighting the nauseating dizziness, I backed toward Lissa again, bracing myself for another attack.**_

My mother sighed. "Just go with the man, Rose."

_**Suddenly, her hand caught hold of mine. "Rose," she said quietly. "Don't."**_

"Finally someone with some sense," Dimitri muttered.

_**Her words had no effect on me at first, but calming thoughts gradually began to settle in my mind, coming across through the bond.**_

"Are we ever going to get more information about this bond?" Abe asked. I didn't like the interest he was showing in Lissa.

_**It wasn't exactly compulsion — she wouldn't use that on me — **_

"Thank god," Janine muttered. I was kind of starting to wish she'd just shut up and keep her opinions to herself.

_**but it was effectual, as was the fact that we were hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed.**_

"And she sees the light! Hallelujah!" Christian cried.

I bared my teeth at him. "You heard earlier what a Moroi bite feels like. Are you looking to find out what a dhampir bite feels like as well?"

He gulped. So. It looked like my reputation hadn't lost any points even after my time missing.

_**Even I knew struggling would be pointless. The tension left my body, and I sagged in defeat.**_

I watched Christian carefully, but he didn't say anything.

_**Sensing my resignation, the man stepped forward, turning his attention to Lissa.**_

"Of course the Moroi gets more respect than the dhampir," Eddie complained.

"Well, she is a princess," I pointed out. Although I did actually agree with him.

_**His face was calm. He swept her a bow and managed to look graceful doing it, which surprised me considering his height.**_

I chuckled, picturing it.

"_**My name is Dimitri Belikov," he said.**_

So we finally had it confirmed. Dimitri was the guy who had been standing outside our window.

_**I could hear a faint Russian accent. "I've come to take you back to St. Vladimir's Academy, Princess."**_

"That's the end of the chapter," I said, dog-earing the book and closing it. The Sydney girl let out a little squeak and jumped up to rescue the book. She unfolded the corner of the page, and shoved in a slip of paper that appeared from one of her pockets.

My stomach rumbled again, setting Sydney skittering, and I jumped up. "Oh yeah! Food!"

I went over to the mini-fridge and rummaged through it, pulling out a sandwich and some milk. I didn't really like milk, but there wasn't that much in the fridge.

Just as I sat back down, someone walked through the heavy metal door, pushing a cart of food on silver platters. Well, they looked silver, at least. I wasn't so sure.

The door slammed shut behind her before any of us who had jumped up could catch it.

The girl looked like she didn't want to be there as she handed out plates of food. The Moroi got water bottles filled with blood as well, still so warm that it had to have come right from the vein. We dhampirs all got hearty meals with steak or a whole chicken and a ton of potatoes, along with some pop. The Moroi and alchemist didn't get quite so much food, but they still got enough to make them full.

I set my platter on the end table beside the couch I was sitting on, and cornered the woman.

"Where are we?" I demanded.

She stared up at me with wide, terrified eyes, and opened her eyes to speak. But what came out of her mouth was nothing I could understand. I did, however, notice Dimitri perk up.

He said something back, and I assumed they were speaking in Russian. Which would denote that maybe, just maybe, we were in Russia.

"Um, Dimitri?"

He looked at me and waited.

"What's being said?"

"Well, at first she said 'Please don't kill me.' Then I repeated your question, but in Russian." He tuned in to what she was saying at that moment. "Just as I suspected. We're in Russia. Not too far from where I grew up." I looked for some sort of nostalgia in his face, but I found none. His features were guardian-hard.

"Great. So. Even if we could get out, there's absolutely no where to go." Adrian, ever optimistic. But he was right.

I sighed and turned my back on the woman to eat. Eddie, Lissa and I sat together and chatted.

Adrian trapped Sydney against her chair and was talking to her. I specifically heard him call her Koala. Unfortunately for her, he seemed to like the nickname.

Christian and Mia both sat by themselves, and Dimitri, Abe and my mother sat together, though they didn't say too much.

"So how's Mason?" Lissa asked.

"He's not bad. I'm actually kind of surprised he's not here."

I laughed. "Wouldn't it be great if he was. Ah, the havoc we would wreck." Eddie and I high-fived while Lissa shook her head at us.

We talked a bit more. Eddie caught us up on everything that had gone on at St. Vladimir's (which wasn't a whole lot) and we told him about what we'd been up to out in the human world.

When we finished our meals, the girl, who I hadn't realized was still in the room, loaded the cart back up with the empty plates and left just as quickly as she'd come.

"Well, we should probably get back to the book," Lissa said when everyone had returned to their seats. She started to hand the book back to me, but I stopped her.

"Uh-uh. No way am I reading that entire thing just because it's in my point of view. Do you understand how much reading that is? Like, a lot! And then there's five more books after this! Nope. Not gonna happen."

"Well then, what do you suggest we do?" Abe asked.

"Why don't we pass it around in a circle? And everyone reads a chapter," Lissa offered.

"Fine. And since you're the one who came up with the idea, you get to read next!" Adrian was just happy that he wouldn't have to read for another three chapters. I don't think he realized that he would have had a longer wait if he suggested we go the other way.

"Alright," Lissa said, flipping the book back open and setting aside Sydney's makeshift bookmark. "Chapter two."

***Alright, so I know I should technically be updating Game's Night right now, but I've been toying with this for a while, and I wanted to get it done and post it. Hope you enjoyed! Review!***


	3. Chapter 2

***Oh my god guys! You guys are so great! I can't believe how many notifications I got! In 25 hours, I had forty emails! And I got even more after that! I feel so loved! But, you probably just want to read the next chapter. Coming right up!***

_Lissa's Point of View_

_**My hatred notwithstanding, I had to admit Dimitri Beli-whatever**_

"Belikov," I heard Dimitri mutter under his breath.

_**was pretty smart.**_

Rose snorted.

_**After they'd carted us off to the airport to and onto the Academy's private jet, he'd taken one look at the two of us whispering and ordered us separated.**_

"Alright, so he must be kind of smart," she mumbled.

"Good thinking, Beli-whatever," Adrian called out.

"You don't even know why that's such a good idea yet," Mia said with a snarl.

"Oh well. I believe what Rose is telling us."

Rose started. I think she'd forgotten this was in her point of view. I supposed that was easier to do when I was reading.

"_**Don't let them talk to each other," he warned the guardian who escorted me to the back of the plane. "Five minutes together and they'll come up with an escape plan."**_

I glanced over at Rose, and she was looking at me, a knowing smile playing across her lips. She held her hand out for a high-five, and I slapped it.

_**I shot him a haughty look and stormed off down the aisle. Never mind the fact that we **_**had**_** been planning escape.**_

Rose laughed. "Yeah we were! Erm, will be." I laughed at the puzzled look that crossed her face.

"Don't think too hard Rose. You don't want to give yourself an aneurism," Christian said.

I willed Rose not to respond. Fortunately, she didn't. Probably because she could hear me through the bond, but that didn't always stop her.

_**As it was, things didn't look good for our heroes — or heroines, rather.**_

Janine sighed and shook her head. "You think way too highly of yourself."

"Ouch," said Rose. On the surface she looked like she was being sarcastic, but I knew her well enough to see that it really did hurt her to have her mother say something like that to her. I returned to reading so no one else had the chance to say anything.

_**Once we were in the air, our odd of escape dropped further.**_

"You don't say," remarked Christian. I grabbed Rose's wrist to stop her from flipping the Ozera Lord off.

_**Even supposing a miracle occurred and I did manage to take out all ten guardians, we'd sort of have a problem in getting**_ _**off the plane.**_

"I think you could do it."

"Thank you, Adrian." I smiled at him. Then I looked to Christian and stuck my tongue out at him. "See, Adrian believes in us."

He just shook his head at me sadly.

_**I figured they might have parachutes aboard somewhere, but in the unlikely event I'd be able to operate one,**_

"Aren't they pretty simple?" Mia asked, raising an eyebrow. "Just watch some TV. You'll figure it out."

"I'm pretty sure they don't really work that way. I don't think it's actually that easy," Rose said, her eyes narrowed.

"Guys. Let's just keep going."

_**there was still that little issue of survival, seeing as we'd probably land in the Rocky Mountains**_.

"Yeah, that doesn't sound good," Adrian said, frowning. I was really starting to like this guy.

_**No, we weren't getting off this plane until it landed in backwoods Montana.**_

Adrian made a face. "That sounds like it really sucks. I went to Adler, along the East coast. Not a bad place. I can't imagine it was nearly as bad as Montana. It was sunny most of the time, and right on the beach. Like paradise, really. Well, maybe not so much with the sun. And we never really got to go to the beach. . . . It was pretty warm, though, most of the time."

Rose shot him a look. "Do you even know what you're going to say before you open your mouth?"

He shook his head happily. "Nope." He popped the _p_.

_**I'd have to think of something then, something that involved getting past the Academy's magical wards and ten times as many guardians. Yeah. No problem.**_

I winced at the thought of that. Yep, we were going back to the Academy, and we weren't going to escape again. I held back a sigh and kept reading.

_**Although Lissa sat at the front with the Russian guy,**_

"I love how you refuse to call him by name, Rose." That was Eddie, in the light-hearted way he and Rose always joked. She winked at him.

_**her fear sang back to me, pounding inside my head like a hammer.**_

I felt bad about that. Rose had to be — would be — under enough pressure without having to feel my stress.

_**My concern for her cut into my fury. They couldn't take her back **_**there, **_**not to that place. I wondered if Dimitri might have hesitated if he could feel what I did and if he knew what I knew.**_

I looked at Dimitri. I wasn't sure. He was so hard to read, though I suppose that wasn't anything knew with guardians in general, and especially this guy, it seemed. Of course, he also didn't know what Rose and I knew, so hearing that there was a particular reason to us not wanting to go back wouldn't mean much to him.

_**Probably not. He didn't care.**_

And we now knew Rose's opinion of this guy.

He frowned at hearing that, and I wondered what was going through his mind.

_**As it was, her emotions grew so strong that for a moment, I had the disorienting sensation of sitting in her seat — in her **_**skin **_**even.**_

I made a face. I hated it when that happened.

"Rose, you're _in_ Lissa?" Adrian asked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"Ugh. Shut up."

_**It happened sometimes, and without much warning, she'd pull me right into her head. Dimitri's tall frame sat beside me, and my hand — **_**her**_** hand — gripped a bottle of water. He leaned forward to pick up something, revealing six tiny symbols tattooed on the back of his neck: **_**molnija**_** marks.**_

I saw Sydney — I refused to call her Koala, which seemed to be Adrian's new pet name for her — cringed further back into her chair, if that was possible. I felt really bad for her. She was so terrified of us, but I wasn't sure why. Or what she even knew about us, but obviously she knew something, or she would have reacted with more shock at hearing about vampires.

_**They looked like two tiny streaks of jagged lightning crossing in an X symbol. One for each Strigoi he'd killed.**_

Everybody turned to look at Dimitri, and he kept his face carefully blank of emotion.

"So?" said Mia.

"So what?" he responded, as though he were daring her to say more.

"Let's see them!" Adrian called out.

Dimitri looked around at everyone. Most of the faces were eager, Janine and Abe being the exception. Abe looked suddenly interested in the man, and Janine looked like she'd seen it all before. She probably had. She was one of the best reputed guardians in the world. But nonetheless, all faces were turned to him.

He sighed and turned in his chair, pulling his long hair off the back of his neck, revealing the tattoos, underneath his promise mark.

"Woah. Remind me to take you seriously." Christian's usual snark was gone.

"I think the sentiment is lost if you have to be reminded," Abe put in. I laughed.

"Can I turn around now?" Dimitri asked, sounding exasperated.

"Sure."

He sat back in his seat, not looking all that happy about the marks on the back of his neck. I wondered why. They showcased his impressive accomplishments. Shouldn't he be proud of that? I shrugged and kept reading, now that everyone had settled back down.

_**Above them was a twisting line, sort of like a snake, that marked him as a guardian. The promise mark.**_

"I do so solemnly swear . . ." Adrian mocked.

Rose glared at him. "It's nothing to make fun of. It's the most sacred of commitments. Without us, you guys would be dead."

I put a hand on her arm. "Rose, he doesn't mean any harm. He's just trying to lighten the mood. He didn't mean to offend you." _I don't think_, I added silently.

She snorted. "Very reassuring."

_**Blinking, I fought against her and shifted back into my own head with a grimace. I hated when that happened.**_

Glad to know that was a shared sentiment.

_**Feeling Lissa's **_

I paused and laughed. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy.

"It's just really strange saying my name out loud, and knowing I'm actually talking about myself. About my future."

Eddie nodded. "That makes sense."

_**emotions was one thing, but slipping into her**_

Sniggers came from Adrian's direction.

_**was something we both despised. She saw it as an invasion of privacy,**_

_Which it is, _I thought.

_**so I usually didn't tell her when it happened.**_

I turned to glare at Rose. "What?"

She shrugged sheepishly.

_**Neither of us could control it. It was another effect of the bond, a bond neither of us fully understood. Legends existed about psychic links between guardians and their Moroi, but the stories had never mentioned anything like this. We fumbled through it as best we could.**_

Abe was looking at me like I was a very interesting new species of bug again, and it made me nervous. He struck me as the kind of guy that you didn't want to have interested in you.

_**Near the end of the flight, Dimitri walked back to where I sat and traded places with the guardian beside me. I pointedly turned away, staring our the window absentmindedly.**_

"Doing everything you can to not to look at him," I supplied. People frowned at me. "Oh, that wasn't part of the story."

"Way to confuse us, Lissa," Eddie joked.

_**Several moments of silence passed. Finally, he said, "Were you really going to attack us all?"**_

"Of course she was," Janine said with a sigh.

"She's retarded," said Mia.

I glared, then kept reading.

_**I didn't answer.**_

"_**Doing that . . . protecting her like that — it was very brave." He paused.**_** "Stupid, **_**but still brave. Why did you even try it?"**_

"Stupid's sure an apt description Rose's actions," Janine said. Rose snarled.

_**I glanced over at him, brushing my hair out of my face so I could look him levelly in the eye. "Because I'm her guardian." **_

"Wow, Rose," I said, looking at my best friend. I couldn't believe she cared for me so much.

She shrugged nonchalantly. "It's no big deal."

It was to me, but I didn't pursue it. If she wanted to pretend it meant nothing, she could. It was none of my business.

_**I turned back to the window.**_

_**After another quiet moment, he stood up and returned to the front of the jet.**_

"How poetic," Eddie said, looking like he actually half meant it.

I looked at Sydney, trying to gauge how she was feeling. She looked — well, not more relaxed or less afraid, but a little closer to being that way. Like she was getting lost in the story. And I supposed that was half as good.

_**When we landed, Lissa **_

I giggled.

_**and I had no choice but to let the commandos drive us out to the Academy.**_

Adrian snorted. "Commandos. I like the way you think." He looked at the two guardians in the room. "I think I'm going to start calling you that."

"Oh, for the love of god—" Janine started. Abe shushed her, and she started spluttering. "Did you just _shush_ me, Ibrahim Mazur?" she shouted.

"I just want you to realize that there's no point to this arguing," he said calmly. "So let's just read." When she calmed down enough, Abe gestured for me to continue.

_**Our car stopped at the gate, and our driver spoke with guards who verified we weren't Strigoi about to go off on a killing spree.**_

"Not that you should be able to get past the wards if you were," Christian muttered.

_**After a minute, they let us pass through the wards and up to the Academy itself. It was around sunset — the start of the vampiric day — **_

Sydney made a face. Well, more of one than she'd already been making.

_**and the campus lay wrapped in shadows**_.

_**It probably looked the same, sprawling and gothic. The Moroi were big on tradition;**_

"You can say that again," Eddie murmured.

_**nothing ever changed with them. This school wasn't as old as the ones back in Europe, but it had been built in the same style.**_

Dimitri looked slightly nostalgic. Thinking of his own days at an Academy somewhere in the world?

_**The buildings boasted elaborate, almost churchlike architecture,**_ _**with high peaks and stone carvings.**_

"When did you become a big architecture freak?" asked Eddie.

Rose shrugged. "Sometimes you have to notice these things."

_**Wrought iron gates enclosed small gardens and doorways here and there. After living on a college campus, I had a new appreciation for just how much this place resembled a university more than a typical high school.**_

Sydney looked interested, all of a sudden. I guess she liked architecture. And she probably wasn't lying about it like Rose was.

_**We were on the secondary campus, which was divided into lower and upper schools. Each was built around a large open quadrangle decorated with**_ _**stone paths and enormous, century-old trees.**_

"Ah, that certainly brings back memories," Adrian sighed, smiling.

"How?" Mia, asked, inspecting the ends of her hair. "You didn't even go to St. Vladimir's."

"Bah, all Academies are fundamentally the same."

_**We were going toward the upper school's quad, which had academic buildings on one side, while dhampir dormitories**_ _**and the gym sat opposite. Moroi dorms sat on one of the other ends, and opposite them were the administrative buildings that also served the lower school. Younger students lived on the primary campus, further to the west**_.

"Very thorough, Rose," Christian scoffed. "I'm impressed you even remember that much about the campus."

"I lived there almost my whole life. A year and a half — er, two years — isn't going to dim my memory of it."

He shrugged. "I thought you'd go out of your way to try to forget it."

I was kind of surprised at how well Christian seemed to know our personalities. I mean, we'd certainly been pretty popular back at the Academy, so it wasn't like it was super strange, but he had definitely not been a part of our group. He was a loner. He wasn't really a part of any group.

_**Around all the campuses was space, space, and more space. We were in Montana, after all, miles away from any real city.**_

Adrian made a face. I guess he was a city guy, not country.

_**The air felt cool in my lungs and smelled of pine and wet, decaying leaves.**_

"Yum," said Eddie sarcastically.

_**Overgrown forests ringed the perimeters of the Academy, and during the day, you could see mountains rising up in the distance.**_

"It sounds pretty," Sydney whispered to herself. I doubt I would have heard her if I didn't have heightened vampire senses. I was a little surprised she'd said anything at all.

_**As we walked into the main part of the upper school, I broke from my guardian and ran up to Dimitri.**_

"_**Hey, Comrade."**_

"Hey," Rose said. "I like that. Go future me. Good thinking. I'm gonna start using that now." She looked at Dimitri. "Comrade."

He frowned at her, the corners of his eyes tightening.

_**He kept walking and wouldn't look at me. "You want to talk now?"**_

"_**Are you taking us to Kirova?"**_

"Rose, you could at least be respectful," Janine sighed.

She thought about it. "Nah, I couldn't."

Janine shook her head, but stayed silent.

"**Headmistress **_**Kirova," he corrected.**_

"See? Guardian Belikov has manners," Janine pointed out.

"I think we should all call him Comrade. What do you think, guys?" Rose asked, looking at the others our age. And Adrian, though I wasn't really sure how old he was. I figured he'd graduated already, but I couldn't be sure.

There were nods around the room. Dimitri — er, Comrade looked pained.

_**On the other side of him, Lissa shot me a look that said, **_**Don't start something.**

I managed to hold in the giggle at saying my name this time.

"_**Headmistress. Whatever. She's still a self-righteous old bit—"**_

"Rose!" her mother exclaimed.

"Don't worry, Guardian Hathaway," I said, flipping the page. "She doesn't get the chance to finish the sentiment."

_**My words faded as the guardians led us through a set of doors — straight into the commons.**_

"Oooh, not cool Comrade," Adrian chastised.

_**I sighed. Were these people **_**really**_** so cruel?**_

"Rose, you ran away. You only get what you deserve," Dimitri said. I was surprised. I think that's the first time he'd spoken during this chapter.

She glared, but it wasn't really at him. It was more at the floor.

_**There had to be at least a dozen ways to get to Kirova's office, and they were taking us right through the center of the commons.**_

_**And it was breakfast time.**_

Eddie flinched. "Shitty. Real mean, Comrade."

_**Novice guardians — dhampirs like me**_ — _**and Moroi sat together, eating and socializing, faces alight with whatever current gossip held the Academy's attention.**_

"Oh, gossip from the future. Be still, my beating heart." Christian rolled his eyes.

_**When we entered, the loud buzz of conversation stopped instantly, like someone had flipped a switch. Hundreds of sets of eyes swivelled toward us.**_

"Oh, the attention," Rose called out, throwing a hand over her eyes dramatically.

_**I returned the stares of my former classmates with a lazy grin, trying to get a sense as to whether things had changed.**_

"Yep, that sounds like you, Rose," I said with a laugh.

_**Nope. Didn't seem like it. Camille Conta still looked like the prim, perfectly groomed bitch I remembered,**_

"Rose! Have you no respect?"

She shook her head happily. "Life's more fun that way."

"Fun?" I asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Well, at least more exciting."

"Yeah. Exciting. That's one word for it."

_**still the self-appointed leader of the Academy's royal Moroi cliques. Off to the side, Lissa's gawky near-cousin Natalie watched with wide eyes, as innocent and naive as before.**_

"I'd forgotten about Natalie," Rose said, looking speculative.

I felt bad, because I had too.

_**And on the other side of the room . . . well, that was interesting. Aaron.**_

Mia perked up. Alright then. Apparently something was under _that _particular leaf.

I hadn't really missed Aaron, but saying his name still brought back memories, both good and bad.

_**Poor, poor Aaron, who'd no doubt had his heart broken when Lissa left. He still looked as cute as ever — maybe more so now — with those same golden looks that complemented**_ _**hers so well.**_

Mia sniffed.

"I don't think he was that bad off when you left." Christian sneered. I wondered what that meant.

_**His eyes followed her every move.**_

Mia's eyes narrowed.

_**Yes. Definitely not over her. It was sad, really, because Lissa had never really been all that into him. I think she'd gone out with him simply because it seemed like the expected thing to do.**_

Mia sniffed.

_**But what I found most interesting was that Aaron had apparently found a way to pass the time without her.**_

Mia smiled evilly. Alrighty then.

_**Beside him, holding his hand, was a Moroi girl who looked about eleven, but had to be older, unless he'd become a pedophile during our absence.**_

Yeah, that description certainly fit Mia, and the fact that she was glaring at me solidified my thought that she was the one next to him.

_**With plump little cheeks and blond ringlets, she looked like a porcelain doll.**_

She looked like she was trying to decide how she felt of that assessment. She settled on pleased.

_**A very pissed off and evil porcelain doll.**_

The pleased look turned murderous, further proving Rose's point. It gave us help visualizing what she was describing, at least.

_**She gripped his hand tightly and shot Lissa a look of such burning hatred that it stunned me.**_

Kind of like the one she was giving me now. "Wow. Mia. Look, I don't like Aaron. Keep him for yourself. I honestly don't care."

Her expression lightened a little bit, but she continued to glare at me.

_**What the hell was that all about? She was no one I knew. Just a jealous girlfriend, I guessed. I'd be pissed too if my guy was watching someone else like that.**_

Of course, it was unlikely any guy Rose was going out with would bother looking at any other girl, ever. She was too beautiful, she captured the attention of every guy when we walked in a room. Back home in Portland, at our high school, she had all the guys pining after her.

_**Our walk of shame mercifully ended, though our new setting — Headmistress Kirova's office — **_

"And she finally learns manners!" Eddie called.

"Nah, I just wanted everyone else to shut up about how disrespectful I am."

_**didn't really improve things. The old hag**_

"And she's back to normal."

_**looked exactly like I remembered, sharp-nosed and gray-haired. She was tall and slim, like most Moroi, and had always reminded me of a vulture.**_

Christian laughed. "What a great analogy." Eddie nodded.

_**I knew her well because I'd spent a lot of time in her office.**_

Abe smiled. He looked almost proud.

_**Most of our escorts left us once Lissa and I were seated, and I felt a little less like a prisoner. Only Alberta,**_

"Isn't that a country?" Adrian asked.

"It's a province in Canada," came a small voice. Nine heads swivelled to look at Sydney.

My mouth almost dropped open. I couldn't believe she'd spoken. And to say something so arbitrary, even.

She dropped her eyes as soon as we looked at her. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. It's nice not to see you looking quite so terrified for once," Eddie said soothingly.

She lifted her eyes to meet his, looking puzzled. "Why do you care?"

Eddie frowned. "Why wouldn't I? I don't want to see anyone afraid. That's why I train so hard to do what I do."

Probably not the best thing he could've said, but definitely not the worst. He didn't realize that he'd made his feelings for her emotions seem like a job. Bad move. But it was the kind of statement that could be taken more than one way. And as I looked at Sydney's face, she appeared to be really grateful to Eddie. Not that she'd really relaxed that much, but I saw just the slightest bit of tension go out of her shoulders.

I went back to reading before anyone could say anything to ruin it.

_**the captain of the school's guardians, and Dimitri stayed. They took up positions along the wall, looking stoic and terrifying, just as their job description required.**_

"Now there's a job I could get into," Adrian said with a wink, then tried to affect a serious face. It didn't work very well, especially when he broke out laughing thirty seconds later.

_**Kirova fixed her angry eyes on us and opened her mouth to begin what would no doubt be a major bitch session.**_

Everyone who'd been privy to any such bitch session flinched.

_**A deep, gentle voice stopped her.**_

"Oh, who is it, who is it?" Adrian asked. I imagined him as a panting puppy. It was a fitting image.

"_**Vasilisa."**_

My face screwed up at having to use and say my full name.

_**Startled, I realized there was someone else in the room. I hadn't noticed. Careless for a guardian, even a novice one.**_

"That's for sure," Janine muttered, shaking her head.

_**With a great deal of effort, Victor Dashkov rose from a corner chair.**_

"Victor! Uncle!" I squealed, earning myself some strange looks from the others.

**Prince**_** Victor Dashkov. Lissa sprang up and ran to him, throwing her arms around his frail body.**_

"_**Uncle," she whispered.**_

"See?" Rose said, pointing at the book. "_Whispered. _Not shouted. You did it wrong."

I stared at her until she sighed and told me to just read.

_**She sounded on the verge of tears as she tightened her grip.**_

"You're gonna knock him over," Rose chastised. I ignored her.

_**With a small smile, he gently patted her back. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you safe, Vasilisa." He looked toward me. "And you too, Rose."**_

"Nice to know I'm an afterthought. Like always," Rose said, just a hint of bitterness leaking into her voice.

_**I nodded back, trying to hide how shocked I was. He'd been sick when we left, but this — this was **_**horrible.**

My mouth dropped to form a little O. Uncle was bad? Worse than before? I let out a shuddering breath.

Rose put her arm around me and hugged me close, giving me the courage to keep reading.

_**He was Natalie's father, only about forty or so, but he looked twice that age. Pale. Withered. Hands Shaking.**_

I took in a deep breath to calm myself.

_**My heart broke watching him. With all the horrible people in the world, it didn't seem fair that this guy should get a disease that was going to kill him young and ultimately keep him from becoming king.**_

I couldn't have said it any better myself. I felt a burning in the bridge of my nose as I fought back tears.

_**Although not technically her uncle — the Moroi used family terms very loosely, especially the royals — **_

"Ain't that right, cuz," said Adrian.

_**Victor was a close friend of Lissa's family and had gone out of his way to help her after her parents had died.**_

Not like that was a memory I wanted to relive.

_**I liked him; he was the first person I was happy to see here.**_

"Thanks, Rose," Eddie said.

"I haven't seen you yet, I don't think."

He shrugged. "I'm probably in the commons somewhere."

She stuck out her tongue. "Well, it hasn't mentioned you yet, so obviously future-me hasn't seen you yet."

"Guys, quiet."

_**Kirova let them have a few more moments and then stiffly drew Lissa back to her seat.**_

_**Time for the lecture.**_

There were groans from around the room. "Do we actually have to listen to a lecture?" Adrian whined.

_**It was a good one — one of Kirova's best, which was saying something. She was a master at them.**_

"That's for damn sure," Eddie muttered. All the St. Vladimir students, past and present, laughed.

_**I swear that was the only reason she'd gone into school administration, because I had yet to see and evidence of her actually **_**liking**_** kids.**_

We laughed harder. Rose held her sides and rocked back and forth on the couch we were sharing, jostling me. I found that funny, since it was technically her thought, just from the future.

_**The rant covered the usual topics: responsibility, reckless behavior, self-centeredness. . . . Bleh. I immediately found myself spacing out, alternatively pondering the lofistics of escaping through the window in her office.**_

Adrian laughed. "It'd never happen. I tried it once. _Baaaad _idea." He shuddered.

_**But when the tirade shifted to me — well, that was when I tuned back in.**_

"Why?" Eddie asked. "You actually care?"

She shrugged. "I generally like to know exactly how much trouble I'm gonna be in, so I know how much flirting I have to do to get out of it."

I think her mother had given up even trying to correct or comment on her behavior. She and Dimitri were both looking at her with disapproval plain on their faces, but they weren't saying anything.

"_**You, Miss Hathaway, broke the most sacred promise among our kind: the promise of a guardian to protect a Moroi.**_

"Never mind the fact that you're not actually a guardian," Adrian said.

"If she wants to act like one, she will be treated like one," Dimitri said sternly.

_**It is a great trust. A trust that you violated by selfishly taking the princess away from here.**_

I glowered at the book. _Selfishly. _Yeah, right. Everything Rose did, she did for me.

_**The Strigoi would love to finish off the Dragomirs; **_**you**_** nearly enabled them to do it."**_

Rose glared at the room, daring the adults to say anything.

"_**Rose didn't kidnap me." Lissa spoke before I could, her voice and face calm, despite her uneasy feelings. "I wanted to go. Don't blame her."**_

I looked up to the guardians in the room. I hoped they'd take note of what they were hearing, because it was the truth.

_**Ms. Kirova**_

"And now we've gone from _Kirova _to _bitch_ to _Headmistress_ to _Ms._," Janine said with a frown.

**tsk**_**ed at us both and paced the office, hands folded behind her narrow back.**_

"_**Miss Dragomir, you could have been the one who orchestrated the entire plan**_

"Pfft, as if. _Princess Vasilisa_ is too goody-two-shoes for that," Christian mocked. I frowned, actually hurt by his statement. By his assumption of me. I kind of wanted to hit him. But I should probably leave that for Rose.

_**for all I know, but it was still **_**her**_** responsibility to make sure you didn't carry it out.**_

"That seems unfair," Adrian said.

Rose shrugged. "Yeah, but that's the way it is. That's the way it's always been." I noticed all the dhampirs were grumbling and agreeing.

_**If she'd done her duty, she would have notified someone. If she'd done her duty, she would have kept you safe."**_

_**I snapped.**_

"Oh no. She's finally snapped. We all knew it would happen eventually." Eddie laughed.

Rose rolled her eyes.

"_**I **_**did**_** do my duty!" I shouted, jumping up from my chair. Dimitri and Alberta both flinched but left me alone since I wasn't trying to hit anyone. Yet.**_

"You know what I love about that sentence? The yet." Christian smiled darkly.

"_**I did keep her safe! I kept her safe when none of **_**you" **_**— I made a sweeping gesture around the room — "could do it.**_

Dimitri looked curious. I didn't pause long enough to let him ask. I only hoped future-Rose wouldn't actually explain what she was talking about. Because we might end up seeming crazy.

_**I took her away to protect her. I did what I had to do. You certainly weren't going to."**_

"That was uncalled for, Rose," Janine said.

"I haven't even done anything yet!" Rose exclaimed helplessly.

_**Through the bond, I felt Lissa trying to send me calming messages, again urging me not to let anger get the best of me. Too late.**_

"Unsurprising, honestly," I said, shooting Rose a sardonic look.

_**Kirova stared at me, her face blank. "Miss Hathaway, forgive me if I fail to see the logic of how taking her out of a heavily guarded, magically secured environment is protecting her. Unless there's something you aren't telling us."**_

"Yeah, how 'bout that, Rose?" Mia said with a glance at Janine. Trying to get her in trouble again. Okay, I was starting to seriously not like this girl.

_**I bit my lip.**_

_Oh, thank God, _I thought.

"_**I see. Well, then. By my estimation, the only reason you left — aside from the novelty of it, no doubt — was to avoid the consequences of that horrible, destructive stunt you pulled just before your disappearance."**_

"Oh yeah. I'd forgotten about that," Eddie said, looking a little like he was lost in a memory.

Janine glared at Rose. "What stunt?"

She smiled sheepishly, but didn't respond. I got back to reading so she didn't have to, and she shot me a grateful smile.

"_**No, that's not—"**_

"_**And that only makes my decision that much easier.**_

"I have a bad feeling about this," Adrian stated.

_**As a Moroi, the princess must continue on here at the Academy for her own safety, but we have no such obligations to you. You will be sent away as soon as possible."**_

Rose's jaw dropped. "What! No no no no no! That can't happen! No!" She looked around frantically, looking like a trapped animal. I knew that look. She wanted to lunge at something and hurt someone. I tried to calm her down using the bond, but I didn't think it was really working.

I skimmed over the next few pages, breathing a sigh of a relief when I saw that they weren't actually going to send her away.

_**My cockiness dried up. "I . . . what?"**_

Adrian chuckled. "Hehe. Cock." Rose chucked a throw pillow at him.

_**Lissa stood up beside me. "You can't do that! She's my guardian."**_

"_**She is no such thing, particularly since she isn't**_ _**even a guardian at all. She's still a novice."**_

"She's barely even that," Janine muttered, casting an unhappy glance at her daughter.

"_**But my parents—"**_

My voice caught, and Rose put her arm back around me, squeezing me tight, even though I could tell she needed comfort just as much as I did.

"_**I know what your parents wanted, God**_ _**rest their souls, but things have changed. Miss Hathaway is expendable. She doesn't deserve to be a guardian, and she will leave."**_

I flinched, even though I'd read ahead and knew it wouldn't happen in the end.

_**I stared at Kirova, unable to believe what I was hearing. "Where are you going to send me? To my mom in Nepal?**_

It was Janine's turn to flinch.

_**Did she even know I was gone?**_

"Of course I knew you're gone. Why else would I be so disappointed in you?" she barked. Rose's eyes narrowed.

"_**Or maybe you'll send me off to my **_**father?"**

I caught just the slightest reaction from Abe, just a twitching of his left eye. I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't been looking at Janine, whom he was sitting next to on a couch across from us. Intriguing.

_**Her eyes narrowed at the bite in that last word. When I spoke again, my voice was so cold, I barely recognized it.**_

"_**Or maybe you're going to try to send me off to be a blood whore. Try that, and we'll be gone by the end of the day."**_

A chorus of "ooooh"s went up.

"_**Miss Hathaway," she hissed, "you are out of line."**_

"_**They have a bond." Dimitri's low, accented voice broke the heavy tension, and we all turned toward him.**_

Just as we were doing now.

Mia stared at him. "Speak," she commanded.

He stared back at her like she was crazy. "What?"

"Hmm. Nice," she declared.

_**I think Kirova had forgotten he was there, but I hadn't. His presence was way too powerful to ignore.**_

"That's funny. I've been ignoring him without a problem for quite some time now," Christian said.

_**He still stood against the wall, looking like some sort of cowboy sentry in that ridiculous long coat of his.**_

A frown crossed Dimitri's face, and he tugged his coat tighter around him.

_**He looked at me, not Lissa, his dark eyes staring straight through me. "Rose knows what Vasilisa is feeling. Don't you?"**_

"Did you know that? Now, I mean. Not in the future," I asked.

"I suspected."

_**I at least had the satisfaction of seeing Kirova caught off guard as she glanced between us and Dimitri. "No . . . that's impossible. That hasn't happened in centuries."**_

"That we know of," Abe put in.

"_**It's obvious," he said. "I suspected as soon as I started watching them."**_

"Watching us?" I shuddered.

"Creepy, Comrade," Rose said, making a face.

Dimitri didn't look happy to hear the nickname come back.

_**Neither Lissa nor I responded, and I averted my eyes from his.**_

"Rose held her tongue. It truly is a rare occasion," Janine mocked.

"_**That is a gift," murmured Victor from his corner. "A rare and wonderful thing."**_

"_**The best guardians always had that bond," added Dimitri. "In the stories."**_

"They're just stories. Who knows whether or not they're true?" Janine said. I was really getting sick of her acting like Rose was the worst person in the world. I might just have to have a talk with her after this chapter was finished.

_**Kirova's outrage returned. "Stories that are centuries old," she exclaimed. "Surely you aren't suggesting we let her stay at the Academy after everything she's done?"**_

Rose started to look hopeful. Just a little.

_**He shrugged. "She might be wild and disrespectful, but if she has potential—"**_

"_**Wild and disrespectful?" I interrupted. "Who the hell are you anyway? Outsourced help?"**_

"Rose . . ." I started, not bothering to finish it. I knew the person saying these things wasn't really her. Well, it was, but it wasn't the Rose sitting next to me. It was future-Rose, a Rose who was under a lot of stress. Not that Rose wouldn't say something like that now, or when she wasn't under a lot of stress, but I liked to think that she wouldn't say something like that to the only person who was trying to help her.

"_**Guardian Belikov is the princess's guardian now," said Kirova. "Her **_**sanctioned**_** guardian."**_

I looked sharply over at Dimitri. He was going to be my guardian. Well, that was going to be . . . fun. Not really.

"_**You got cheap foreign labor to protect Lissa?"**_

I bit back a bark of laughter. "That's harsh, Rose." She shrugged.

_**That was pretty mean of me to say — particularly since most Moroi and their guardians were of Russian or Romanian descent — but the comment seemed cleverer at the time than it really was.**_

"Cleverer. Is that even a word?" Adrian asked, repeating it to himself a few times.

"Yes," Sydney answered automatically. "The word _clever_ originated in 1590, from Middle English _cliver,_ which meant 'expert at seizing.'" She rhymed off the facts without looking up from her clasped hands, but glanced up when she finished, seeming a little surprised that she'd spoken.

"Well, that was more information than I ever really needed to know on the word clever," Adrian remarked happily.

_**And it wasn't like I was one to talk. I might have been raised in the U.S., but my parents were foreign-born. My dhampir mother was Scottish — red-haired, with a ridiculous accent — **_

"My accent is not ridiculous!" she cried. Rose just looked at her until she simpered back in her seat.

_**And I'd been told my Moroi dad was Turkish. That genetic combination had given me skin the same color as the inside of an almond, along with what I liked to think were semi-exotic desert-princess features: big dark eyes and hair so deep brown it usually looked black.**_

Everyone turned to stare at Rose again, drinking in her appearance.

Mia scoffed. "Desert-princess? Someone thinks highly of themselves."

"Someone's gotta boost your ego. When there's no one else to do it, you gotta do it yourself."

"Yeah. I live by that rule," Adrian said, making a perverted movement with his hand.

Disgust was the ruling expression around the circle.

_**I wouldn't have minded inheriting the red hair, but we take what we get.**_

Janine laughed.

_**Kirova threw her hands up in exasperation and turned to him. "You see? Completely undisciplined! All the psychic bonds and **_**very**_** raw potential in the world can't make up for that.**_

"Thanks," Rose said, glaring at nothing.

_**A guardian without discipline is worse than no guardian."**_

I frowned. "Really?"

Rose shrugged, but Janine was nodding.

"_**So teach her discipline. Classes just started. Put her back in and get her training again."**_

Rose groaned at the thought of that.

"_**Impossible. She'll still be hopelessly behind her peers."**_

"_**No, I won't," I argued. No one listened to me.**_

"Huh. Wonder how that feels," Christian mocked. We ignored him.

"_**Then give her extra training sessions," he said.**_

Rose groaned. "Yay." I was amazed at the amount of sarcasm she managed to fit into that one word.

_**They continued on while the rest of us watched the exchange like it was a Ping-Pong game.**_

"Ah, Rose, I love you're mind. It's so interesting, the things you come up with," Adrian crooned.

_**My pride we still hurt over the ease with which Dimitri had tricked us, but it occured to me that he might very well keep me here with Lissa.**_

_Finally,_ I thought.

_**Better to stay in this hellhole than be without her.**_

Eddie frowned. "It's not _that_ bad."

All the other St. Vlad's students looked at him.

"Yes, it is," Christian said flatly.

_**Through our bond, I could feel her trickle of hope.**_

"_**Who's going to put in the extra time?" demanded Kirova. "You?"**_

"Oh," I said. I hadn't thought about the fact that someone would have to volunteer their time to train Rose, but I should have.

_**Dimitri's argument came to an abrupt stop. "Well, that's not what I—"**_

Rose and I both looked up at him. I knew it was out of his control, at least at the moment, but I think we were both willing him to help Rose.

_**Kirova crossed her arms with satisfaction. "Yes. That's what I thought."**_

Rose started to pout.

_**Clearly at a loss, he frowned. His eyes flicked toward Lissa and me, and I wondered what he saw. Two pathetic girls, looking at him with big, pleading eyes?**_

Kind of like we were doing now, actually.

_**Or two runaways who'd broken out of a high-security school and swiped half of Lissa's inheritance?**_

"When you put it that way . . ." Abe said with a smirk.

"The first one. Definitely the first one," Adrian added with a nod.

"_**Yes," he said finally. "I can mentor Rose. I'll give her extra sessions along with her normal ones."**_

Now-Dimitri grimaced, probably wondering what future-Dimitri was doing and why. I didn't know, but I was grateful nonetheless.

"_**And then what?" retorted Kirova angrily. "She goes unpunished?"**_

"Yes please, yes please, yes please," Rose chanted beside me.

"_**Find some other way to punish her,"**_

"Noooo!" she crooned.

_**answered Dimitri. "Guardian numbers have gone down too much to risk losing another. A girl, in particular."**_

"Not that she would really care," Rose muttered.

_**His unspoken words made me shudder, reminding me of my earlier statement about "blood whores." Few dhampir girls became guardians anymore.**_

All the dhampirs in the room had a moment of solemn silence at that statement.

_**Victor suddenly spoke up from his corner. "I'm inclined to agree with Guardian Belikov. Sending Rose away would be a shame, a waste of talent."**_

_Thanks, Uncle, _I said silently. Rose shot me a knowing smile.

_**Ms. Kirova stared out her window. It was completely black outside. With the Academy's nocturnal schedule, **_**morning**_** and **_**afternoon**_** were relative terms. That, and they kept the windows tinted to block out excess light.**_

Sydney shuddered.

_**When she turned back around, Lissa met her eyes. "Please, Ms. Kirova. Let Rose stay."**_

_There I go,_ I thought. _Finally. _Current-me had been thinking future-me should use compulsion for a while now. Future-me was just now catching on.

**Oh, Lissa, **_**I thought. **_**Be careful. **_**Using compulsion on another Moroi was dangerous — **_

Janine's face darkened. I looked away from her, feeling guilty.

_**particularly in front of witnesses.**_

Rose elbowed me.

_**But Lissa was only using a tiny bit, and we needed all the help we could get.**_

I elbowed her back.

_**Fortunately, no one seemed to realize what was happening.**_

I elbowed her again, this time landing it in her ribs. "Ow," she said, rubbing the spot. Eddie sniggered at her, and she started, as if just remembering that there were other people in the room.

_**I don't even know if the compulsion made a difference, but finally, Kirova sighed.**_

So did Rose and I. Huge sighs of relief. I'd read it to myself already, but saying it aloud made it _real._

"_**If Miss Hathaway stays, here's how it will be." She turned to me. "Your continued enrollment at St. Vladimir's is strictly probationary. Step out of line **_**once,**_** and you're gone.**_

Rose and I flinched, in unison.

_**You will attend all classes and required trainings for novices your age. You will also train with Guardian Belikov in every spare moment you have — before **_**and**_** after classes.**_

Eddie made a sympathetic noise. _Poor you, _he mouthed, shooting a furtive glance at Dimitri.

Rose looked from one guy to the other, and looked resigned.

_We still have six months until this happens, _I reminded her through the bond. Her lips quirked.

_**Other than that, you are banned from all social activities, except meals, and will stay in your dorm.**_

Adrian hissed in a breath. "Shitty. Definitely shitty."

_**Fail to comply with any of this, and you will be sent . . . away."**_

Rose gulped, and I rubbed her shoulder in sympathy.

_**I gave a harsh laugh. "Banned from all social activities? Are you trying to keep us apart?"**_

"Obviously," Janine mumbled under her breath.

_**I nodded toward Lissa. "Afraid we'll run away again?"**_

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me," Dimitri murmured, probably to no one other than himself, but I heard.

"_**I'm taking precautions. As I'm sure you recall, you were never properly punished for destroying school property.**_

"Not that I actually did that," Rose mumbled for only my ears. Guilt flashed through me, and Rose started. "Oh, Liss. I wasn't blaming you."

I tried to smile at her, but it came off wrong. I could see myself reflected in Rose's dark eyes. It looked like I was grimacing. Or snarling.

I gave up and turned back to the book.

_**You have a lot to make up for." Her thin lips tightened into a straight line. "You are being offered a very generous deal.**_

Rose laughed harshly. "Generous," she scoffed.

_**I suggest you don't let your attitude endanger it."**_

_**I started to say it wasn't generous at all,**_

"Like she just did," Mia pointed out. She seemed to have forgotten about me for the moment.

_**but then I caught Dimitri's gaze. It was hard to read.**_

Glancing over at him now, I didn't have a hard time believing that.

_**He might have been telling me he believed in me. He might have been telling me I was an idiot to keep fighting with Kirova. I didn't know.**_

_Probably the second one, _I thought, holding in a laugh.

_**Looking away from him for the second time during the meeting, I stared at the floor, conscious of Lissa beside me and her own encouragement burning in our bond.**_

I realized I was doing the same thing right now and stopped myself.

_**At long last, I exhaled and glanced back up at the headmistress.**_

"_**Fine. I accept."**_

I found Sydney's bookmark and stuck it between the pages, then shut the book. "That's the end of the chapter. Why don't we take like a fifteen minute break, then come back to read some more. And let's actually stick to the same seats this time." I'd noticed that after having lunch — dinner — whatever, we had ended up switching seats from where we'd originally been sitting. But if we were passing the book around in a circle, we should probably remain in the same circle we'd started in.

There were nods, and then everyone broke off into little groups, moving away from the setup of chairs and couches we'd made. If you could call them couches. They were actually more like love seats.

I got up, throwing a, "I'll be back in a minute," over my shoulder for Rose, and headed straight for Janine. "Can I talk to you?" I asked.

Butterflies flitted in my stomach, but with everything Rose did for me, I felt I owed her anything I could do for her. I walked off into the bedroom, shooting a glance back to see if she was following me. She was.

I sat on the edge of the bed I'd woken up on, and she stood in front of me, arms crossed over her chest defensively. She looked at the door, thought for a second, then closed it.

"So, why do you want to talk to me?"

I took a deep breath and plunged forward. _No turning back now._ "I know you're disappointed in Rose. I know it can't be good for you to hear about all the bad things we've done, but it's in the past. Or, well, some of them are in the future, I guess. But it's nothing we can control. So, maybe you could give her a break? She knows she's done some things that aren't . . . the greatest, for lack of a better term. But it hurts her to hear you berating her. She cares, you know? Maybe you can't see it, but I can. I've been with her forever. I can see the pain she hides in ways others can't. And she already knows some of the decisions she's made are bad. She doesn't need to hear anyone repeat that to her, especially not her mother. I know it seems like she doesn't care for you or about you, but she does. Maybe not as much as you want her to, but she can't really help that. So . . . could you just not be so hard on her?"

I shut up, realizing I'd been repeating myself in my nervousness. I clasped and unclasped my hands, worrying at the edge of my thumb nail.

Janine was silent for several moments. Thinking over what I'd said, I hoped.

"You're right. It's nothing you have control over, not at the moment. I suppose I could do that. Give her a break."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you. Thank you so much," I told her, grasping her hand for a moment.

"Guys! What are you doing in there? The fifteen minutes are up! Come help us convince Koala she has to read!" came Adrian's voice from the other room. I smiled up at Janine one more time, then left the room to sit back down next to Rose.

"What were you saying to my mother?" she asked in a whisper. I'd been blocking her out of the bond so she didn't know what was going on. I didn't want her to get mad.

"Sydney, you have to read. We're all going to read," Eddie coerced. She didn't appear to be putting up much of a fight. She wasn't saying much of anything, in fact. She was just staring at him.

"Come on, Sydney," I said, and she turned to face me, looking me in the eyes. "Just read. The sooner we get this over with, the better." I didn't use compulsion. I knew that would just frighten her all the more, and I didn't want that any more than Eddie did.

She regarded me for several seconds, then nodded. "Alright." She flipped open the book. "Chapter three."

***I know you guys are amazing, so I hardly even have to say it, but I will anyway! Review! Oh, and I don't own Vampire Academy. Let's just say now that it applies to all the chapters, including those to come. Thanks for reading!***


	4. Chapter 3

I was trapped in a room, surrounded by vampires. _It's okay, Sydney. You're okay. It's not like you're locked in a room with a bunch of vampires. Oh wait, yes you are!_

I held back my panic attack, knowing it would achieve nothing, and started my chapter. _The sooner we get this over with, the better._

_**Sending us straight to class after our meeting seemed beyond cruel. But that's exactly what Kirova did.**_

_That doesn't seem cruel to me. I'd be grateful._

"God, Kirova is such a bitch," the sandy-blonde haired dhampir said.

_**Lissa was lead away, and I watched her go, glad the bond would allow me to keep reading her emotional temperature.**_

The beautiful blonde Moroi girl turned to her dark-haired dhampir friend. "You worry about me too much."

The dhampir smiled and touched her arm. "It's my job."

_**They actually sent me to one of the guidance counselors first. He was an ancient Moroi guy, one I remembered from before I'd left.**_

"Oh, that guy," said the ringleted Moroi. I really ought to work on the names of these vampires. If I was going to be stuck here with them, I might as well have something to think of them as, other than "evil" and naming them by their appearance.

_**I honestly couldn't believe he was still around. The guy was so freaking old, he should have retired. Or died.**_

_Well, that's mean._

The dak-haired dhampir (Rosalie?) looked impressed. "He's still around? Wow."

_**The visit took all of five minutes.**_

"Well that's not so bad then," said the sandy-haired dhampir. Edward?

_**He said nothing about my return and asked a few questions about what classes I'd taken in Chicago and Portland.**_

"You were in Chicago?" Janine Hathaway asked, looking disapproving. Her, I knew. She was kind of famous among the vampires.

Dark-hair (Rosaleen?) nodded reluctantly.

_**He compared those against my old file and hastily scrawled out a new schedule. I took it in sullenly and headed out to my first class.**_

_Sullenly, _I scoffed mentally.

**1****st**** Period Advanced Guardian Combat Techniques**

**2****nd**** Period Bodyguard Theory and Personal Protection 3**

**3****rd**** Period Weight Training and Conditioning**

**4****th**** Period Senior Language Arts (Novices)**

—**Lunch—**

**5****th**** Period Animal Behavior and Physiology**

**6****th**** Period Precalculus**

**7****th**** Period Moroi Culture 4**

**8****th**** Period Slavic Art**

_That's a lot of gym type classes before lunch, _I thought with a shudder.

Dark-hair (Rosanne? Wow, I really wanted somebody to say her name) didn't look too happy about what her schedule was going to be.

_**Ugh. I'd forgotten how long the Academy's school day was.**_

The other students grunted in agreement.

_That's not that bad._

_**Novices and Moroi took separate classes during the first half of the day, which meant I wouldn't see Lissa until after lunch — if we had any afternoon classes together.**_

Aha! That was the blonde Moroi's name was Lissa!

_**Most of them were standard senior classes, so I felt my odds were pretty good.**_

Lissa beamed.

_**Slavic art struck me as the kind of elective no one signed up for, so hopefully they'd stuck her in there too.**_

I thought Slavic art sounded cool, but I was kind of surprised the vampire school offered a course like that at all. Judging by the faces being made around me, others didn't agree with my assessment of Slavic art.

_**Dimitri and Alberta escorted me to the guardians' gym for first period, neither one acknowledging my existence.**_

"That's kinda rude, Comrade," Ros-something said.

_**Walking behind them, I saw how Alberta wore her hair in a short, pixie cut that showed her promise mark and **_**molnija **_**marks.**_

I shivered at the thought of Strigoi.

_**A lot of female guardians did this. **_

I saw the dark-haired girl touch her beautiful locks subconsciously. Rose? Yes, that was it! Her name was Rose.

_**It didn't matter so much for me now, but I didn't ever want to cut my hair.**_

"You'll only have to worry about it if you manage to actually graduate," Janine muttered to herself. Lissa looked up at her sharply, and Janine met her eyes guiltily. Obviously something had happened there.

_**She and Dimitri**_

Right, that was the tall guy's name, the one everyone had taken to calling Comrade.

_**didn't say anything and walked along almost like it was any other day.**_

"Almost." The emerald-eyed Moroi smirked like there was some inside joke no one else knew about.

_**When we arrived, the reactions of my peers indicated it was anything but.**_

"Not that that's surprising," sandy-hair said. "It's not like it's every day that the infamous dhampir who ran away two years ago walks back into a classroom."

"You know you missed me, Eddie," Rose told him. Another name mystery solved.

"Yeah, I did."

_**They were in the middle of setting up when we entered the gym, and just like in the commons, all eyes fell on me. I couldn't decide if I felt like a rock star or a circus freak.**_

"Rock star. I'm definitely a rock star," Rose said with a smile, then laughed along with Lissa as she started dancing in her seat.

_**All right, then. If I was going to be stuck here for a while, I wasn't going to act afraid of them all anymore.**_

"Good idea, future me," Rose asserted.

_**Lissa and I had once held this school's respect, and it was time to remind everyone of that.**_

Ringlets snorted.

_**Scanning the staring, openmouthed novices, I looked for a familiar face. Most of them were guys. One caught my eye, and I could barely hold back my grin.**_

"_**Hey Mason, wipe the drool off your face. If you're going to think about me naked, do it on your own time."**_

I kept my face blank as I read that, even though it conjured a random image of a naked Rose. Oh, the perks of having a great imagination. Not.

Many of the others around the room laughed.

_**A few snorts and snickers broke the awed silence, and Mason Ashford snapped out of his haze, giving me a lopsided smile.**_

"Mason!" Rose squealed. You would have thought he was actually there, she was so excited.

_**With red hair that stuck up everywhere and a smattering of freckles, he was nice-looking, though not exactly hot.**_

Eddie made a face. "Really not how I want to think of my best friend." I couldn't help my lips quirking up.

_**He was also one of the funniest guys I knew.**_

"Very true," Eddie said, and Rose nodded emphatically.

_**We'd been good friends back in the day.**_

Christian scoffed. "Back in the day. Way to sound old."

"_**This **_**is**_** my time, Hathaway. I'm leading today's session."**_

More chuckles around the room.

"_**Oh yeah?" I retorted. "Huh. Well, I guess this is a good time to think of me naked, then."**_

Outright laughter, especially on the part of Rose. She held her sides. When everyone calmed down, I continued.

"_**It's **_**always**_** a good time to think about you naked," added someone nearby, breaking the tension further. Eddie Castile. Another friend of mine.**_

"I second that! Great thinking, Eddie!" Leaf-Eyes caroled. I thought his name was Adrian. Rose made a face at him.

_**Dimitri shook his head and walked off, muttering something in Russian that didn't sound complimentary.**_

Rose turned her frown to Dimitri. "Harsh, Comrade." I noted that Dimitri didn't look amused by the comments that sent most of the others into laughter.

_**But as for me . . . well, just like that, I was one of the novices again. They were an easygoing bunch, less focused on pedigree and politics than the Moroi students.**_

_That sounds great, _I thought wistfully.

_**The class engulfed me, and I found myself laughing and seeing those I'd nearly forgotten about.**_

I'd never thought I would want to hang out with people like vampires, but it sounded like they would be great people to be around. Well, the dhampirs, anyway. Not the Moroi.

_**Everyone wanted to know where we'd been; apparently Lissa and I had become legends.**_

Rose smiled and winked at Lissa. "Awesome. We're gonna be legends."

"You already are legends," Eddie said. "The famous two who escaped the school."

"Oooh! Cool!"

_**I couldn't tell them why we'd left, of course, so I offered up a lot of taunts and wouldn't-you-like-to-knows that served just as well.**_

Rose looked proud of her future self.

_**The happy reunion lasted a few more minutes before the adult guardian who oversaw the training came over and scolded Mason for neglecting his duties.**_

"Why isn't Mason here?" Rose wondered.

"I'd been wondering the same thing. I mean, you, he, and I were always pretty close back before you left. You'd think he'd be here. Especially since he's already been mentioned in the story. I would think that means he's pretty important," Eddie responded.

Rose frowned and shrugged.

_**Still grinning, he barked out orders to everyone, explaining what exercises to start with. Uneasily, I realized I didn't know most of them.**_

The full-fledged guardians in the room looked disapproving.

"_**Come on, Hathaway," he said, taking my arm. "You can be my partner. Let's see what you've been doing all this time."**_

Rose blanched, and I figured she hadn't been doing much of anything in the past year and a half.

_**An hour later he had his answer.**_

Eddie laughed, and Rose stuck her tongue out at him.

"_**Not practicing, huh?"**_

"_**Ow," I groaned, momentarily incapable of normal speech.**_

Lissa flinched in sympathy for her friend. I had to admit, I sympathized as well. That sounded painful, and it was only her first period.

_**He extended a hand and helped me up from the mat he'd knocked me down on — about fifty times.**_

Christian and Mia joined in Eddie's laughter.

"_**I hate you," I told him, rubbing a spot on my thigh that was going to have a wicked bruise tomorrow.**_

Even Rose was enjoying her future pain. I guess that's the perfect example of living in the moment for you.

"_**You'd hate me more if I held back."**_

"_**Yeah, that's true," I agreed, staggering along as the class put the equipment back.**_

Now that was something I didn't understand. Where was this girl's self-preservation?

"_**You actually did okay."**_

"It certainly doesn't sound that way," Abe chuckled. I'd made sure to remember his name. He seemed like the kind of person you didn't want to forget about, and not because he's such a fantastic guy. More like because if you forget he's there and he thinks it'll benefit him, he'll stick a knife between your shoulder blades.

Rose huffed at him.

"_**What? I just had my ass handed to me."**_

"Oh," she said, some of her indignant fire going out.

"Haha, not quite so easy to be resentful when you later say it yourself," Christian mocked. I don't know why his was the name I remembered most easily, but I did.

Rose glared at him. I got the feeling the had not been good friends back in the day.

"_**Well, of course you did. It's been two years. But hey, you're still walking. That's something."**_

Dimitri raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything.

_**He grinned mockingly.**_

Rose smiled fondly and the thought of her friend.

"_**Did I mention I hate you?"**_

Everyone laughed. I have to admit, even I chuckled.

_**He flashed me another smile, which quickly faded to something more serious. **_

The room grew somber.

"_**Don't take this the wrong way. . . . **_

"I hate it when people start by saying that. It means I probably will," Rose groaned.

_**I mean, you really are a scrapper, but there's no way you'll be able to take your trials in the spring—"**_

Eddie looked like he'd been thinking the same thing. I didn't really know what trials were, but I figured the book would eventually explain it.

"_**They're making me take extra practice sessions," I explained.**_

"Yeah, fun for me," Rose muttered, shooting a look at Dimitri.

_**Not that it mattered. I planned on getting Lissa and me out of here before these practices really became an issue.**_

Dimitri eyed her. I had a feeling they wouldn't be getting back out.

"_**I'll be ready."**_

I heard a couple of people scoff.

"_**Extra sessions with who?"**_

_Whom, _I corrected in my head.

"_**That tall guy. Dimitri."**_

"That tall guy" couldn't seem to figure out how he felt about being called that. But he was really tall. I doubted it was her first time he'd been referred to as that, and I doubted it'd be the last. Well, definitely not, since this hasn't actually happened yet. Supposedly. I still wasn't sure I believed it was going to. And I hadn't heard anything about myself yet, so that was great.

_**Mason stopped walking and stared at me. "You're putting in extra time with Belikov?"**_

Rose started casting nervous glances at Dimitri. Yeah, that didn't sound like it was going to be pleasant for her, even though we didn't really know why yet.

"_**Yeah, so what?"**_

Eddie sniggered. "Have fun with that!" he sang.

"_**So the man is a **_**god**_**."**_

Dimitri looked surprised at having been called that, and then happy.

"_**Exaggerate much?" I asked.**_

Mia laughed. No, laughed wasn't the word. _Cackled_ was more like it. "Nope." She popped the _P_.

"_**No, I'm serious.**_

Rose groaned. "Yay."

_**I mean, he's all quiet and antisocial usually, but when he fights . . . wow.**_

I snuck a glance at Dimitri. He was trying to keep a straight face, but I could tell he was proud of himself. It radiated from him like an aura.

_**If you think you're hurting now, you're going to be dead when he's done with you."**_

This time when I looked up at Dimitri it was with terror. That could be a quite literal statement, especially given what the book had said earlier about him having six _molnija_ marks. Six Strigoi killed by his hand.

_**Great. Something else to improve my day.**_

A smattering of chuckles went up, but Rose just glowered at the corner.

_**I elbowed him and went on to second period. That class covered the essentials of being a bodyguard and was required for all seniors. Actually, it was the third in a series that started junior year.**_

_How can it be third in the series if it started in junior year, the year before?_

_**That meant I was behind in this class too, but I hoped protecting Lissa in the real world had given me some insight.**_

Lissa smiled at Rose and hugged her quickly.

_**Our instructor was Stan Alto, **_

All the students groaned, Eddie and Rose the loudest.

_**whom we referred to simply as "Stan" behind his back and "Guardian Alto" in formal settings. He was a little older than Dimitri, but not nearly as tall, and he always looked pissed off.**_

"Every time I think of him, I picture him as, like, forty, even though I know that's not what he looks like. Anybody else?" Mia asked. There were a few nods.

_**Today, that look intensified when he walked into the classroom and saw me sitting there.**_

"Way to hate on me, Stan," Rose said, making moves to flip off the air until she thought better of it.

_**His eyes widened in mock surprise as he circled the room and came to stand beside my desk.**_

"Oh, joy," muttered Rose.

"_**What's this? No one told me we had a guest speaker here today. Rose Hathaway. What a privilege!**_ _**How very **_**generous **_**of you to take time out of your busy schedule and share your knowledge with us."**_

"Fuck you, Stan," Rose said, to the happy nods of the other students. Nobody scolded her for swearing, so I assumed Stan was not well liked in general.

_**I felt my cheeks burning, but in a great show of self-control, I stopped myself from telling him to fuck off.**_

"Well, apparently you learn some great amount of self-restraint in the next six months, Rose," Lissa laughed.

_**I'm pretty sure my face must have delivered that message, however, because his sneer increased. He gestured for me to stand up.**_

"Uh oh. That doesn't sound good," Eddie said, making a sympathetic face.

_**I sank into my seat. "You don't mean—"**_

"Oh, yeah he does," Christian stated.

_**The taunting smile dried up. "I mean **_**exactly**_** what I say, Hathaway.**_ _**Go to the front of the class."**_

"Ooo," chorused the young vampires.

_**A thick silence enveloped the room.**_

Not unlike the locked room we were currently sitting in. Everyone was too interested in what was going to happen.

_**Stan was a scary instructor, and most of the class was too awed to laugh at my disgrace quite yet.**_

"Well that's something, at least," Lissa ventured.

_**Refusing to crack, I strode up to the front of the room and turned to face the class.**_

"Way to go, Rose! Woot!" Adrian called.

_**I gave them a bold look and tossed my hair over my shoulders, earning a few sympathetic smiles from my friends.**_

Just like she was getting now, even though this hadn't happened yet.

_**I then noticed I had a larger audience than expected. A few guardians — including Dimitri — **_

He raised an eyebrow at having been noticed.

_**lingered in the back of the room. Outside the Academy, guardians focused on one-on-one protection. Here, guardians had a lot more people to protect **_**and**_** they had to train the novices. **_

I was getting an inside look into vampire culture. Not that I'd really wanted one, but the scholar in me was interested in learning anything and everything I could, even if it had to do with evil creatures of the night.

_**So rather than follow any one person around, they worked shifts guarding the school as a whole and monitoring classes.**_

"_**So, Hathaway," Stan said cheerfully, **_

"Ugh." Eddie made a face.

_**strolling back up to the front with me. "Enlighten me about your protective techniques."**_

"_**My . . . techniques?"**_

Janine's face screwed up in a way that told me she was having a hard time not saying something less then complimentary.

"_**Of course. Because presumably you must have had some sort of plan the rest of us couldn't understand when you took an underage Moroi royal out of the Academy and expose her to constant Strigoi threats."**_

Everyone (well, except I) was looking at Rose and Lissa with curiosity. They shrank into each other, away from the attention. I could imagine it like being a lab rat under the light.

_**It was the Kirova lecture all over again, except with more witnesses.**_

Christian started to snicker, clearly enjoying Rose's future embarrassment.

"_**We never ran into any Strigoi," I replied stiffly.**_

"Unsurprisingly," Dimitri muttered under his breath.

"_**Obviously," he said with a snicker.**_

"What an ass," Rose said, lips pursed.

"_**I already figured that out, seeing as how you're still alive."**_

This guy really was an ass. Who was the brainiac who thought letting this guy teach was a good idea?

_**I wanted to shout that maybe I could have defeated a Strigoi,**_

Janine scoffed, and Dimitri raised an eyebrow.

_**but after getting beat up in the last class, I now suspected I couldn't have survived an attack by Mason, let alone an actual Strigoi.**_

Rose made a face as if she didn't want to believe that. She looked troubled, and glanced over at Lissa, who didn't notice. She was looking at me, or more precisely, at the book I was holding.

_**When I didn't say anything, Stan started pacing in front of the class.**_

"_**So, what'd you do? How'd you make sure she stayed safe? Did you avoid going out at night?"**_

"I just want to go on the record as saying that Rose is a perfectly excellent protector," Lissa told us.

Rose smiled at her. "Thanks, Liss."

"_**Sometimes." That was true — especially when we'd first run away. We'd relaxed a little after months went by with no attacks.**_

The others' faces went stern at hearing this, even Eddie and Adrian's. Eddie wasn't even a full guardian yet, and Adrian didn't really strike me as someone who took _anything_ too seriously.

"**Sometimes,"**_** he repeated in a high-pitched voice, making my answer sound incredibly stupid.**_

"Nope, Rose, you did that one your own," Christian mocked.

"_**Well then, I suppose you slept during the day and stayed on guard at night."**_

Rose looked down at her lap, giving me conformation that she hadn't.

"_**Er . . . no."**_

Janine pursed her lips but managed to remain silent. I could see it was costing her.

"_**No? But that's one of the first things mentioned in the chapter on solo guarding.**_

Note to self: if ever guarding someone by yourself, sleep during the day, stay awake at night. Not that I really thought I'd ever be guarding someone, but it never hurt to know something.

_**Oh wait, you wouldn't know that because **_**you weren't here."**

"I feel like he's picking on the Hathaway more than necessary." Rose was trying to make light of the situation, but it wasn't working. The disapproval radiating from the others was palpable.

_**I swallowed back more swear words. "I watched the area whenever we went out," I said, needing to defend myself.**_

Abe sighed, as if he could see where this was going. For all I knew, he could.

"_**Oh? Well that's something. Did you use the Carnegie's Quadrant Surveillance Method or the Rotational Survey?"**_

Oh, please tell me she knows what those are. I was starting to feel extremely embarrassed for her. Now isn't that funny? An alchemist feeling sorry for a vampire.

Looking at her face, though, told me she had no idea what those two things were, not any more than I did. And looking at Eddie told me she should.

_**I didn't say anything.**_

I cringed right along with her, knowing that wasn't going to elicit a good response. Mercifully, no one said anything just yet.

"_**Ah. I'm guessing you used the Hathaway Glance-Around-When-You-Remember-To Method."**_

"I take offence to that," Janine said with a frown, and Abe patted her arm.

"_**No!" I exclaimed angrily. "That's not true. I watched her. She's still alive, isn't she?"**_

"I suppose we do have that to be grateful for," Janine said, trying to make it sound in the slightest bit complementary. It didn't work.

_**He walked back up to me and leaned toward my face. "Because you got **_**lucky."**

No one denied that.

"_**Strigoi aren't lurking around every corner out there," I shot back.**_

That might be true, but they were still quite numerous. Too numerous.

"_**It's not like what we've been taught. It's safer than you guys make it sound."**_

Eddie and Mia looked interested by this. Christian just looked bitter. I wondered what that was about.

"_**Safer? **_**Safer?**_** We are at war with the Strigoi!" he yelled. I could smell coffee on his breath, he was so close.**_

"Ew!" Mia squealed. The thought just made me crave coffee. I looked up reflexively, happy to see a little one cup coffee maker and a bunch of packets of instant coffee sitting on top of the mini fridge. It was just instant, but it was still the caffeinated wonderfulness of the swirling dark drink.

"_**One of them could walk right up to you and snap your pretty little neck before you even noticed him — and he'd barely break a sweat doing it.**_

"If he broke a sweat at all," Eddie put in.

_**You might have more speed and strength than a Moroi or a human, but you are nothing, **_**nothing, **_**compared to a Strigoi. **_

There was that. As bad as being in a room with Moroi and dhampirs was, it was nowhere near as bad as being within a mile of a Strigoi.

_**They are deadly, and they are powerful. And do you know what makes them more powerful?"**_

The vampires went solemn at the thought.

_**No way was I going to let this jerk make me cry. Looking away from him, I tried to focus on something else. My eyes rested on Dimitri and the other guardians.**_

Dimitri glanced at Rose. I couldn't read his expression.

_**They were watching my humiliation, stone-faced.**_

"As is required in their job descriptions," Rose stated, although she looked none too happy about it.

"_**Moroi blood," I whispered.**_

The vampires all flinched as one.

"_**What was that?" asked Stan loudly. "I didn't catch it."**_

Lissa glared at the air. "What a jerk."

_**I spun back around to face him. "Moroi blood! Moroi blood makes them stronger."**_

I paused for a moment, and we all gave a moment of silence for those who'd lost their lives to a Strigoi, be they human, Moroi, or dhampir.

_**He nodded in satisfaction and took a few steps back. "Yes. It does. It makes them stronger and harder to destroy.**_

"Not like they're not hard enough to kill already," Janine grumbled. Dimitri nodded his agreement.

_**They'll kill and drink from a human or a dhampir, but they want Moroi blood more than anything else. They seek it.**_

"Like a demented game of hide and seek," murmured Rose.

_**They've turned to the dark side to gain immortality, and they want to do whatever they can to keep that immortality.**_

Strigoi were the worst of the ungodly creatures who walked this face of the Earth. I subconsciously made the alchemist sign against evil.

_**Desperate Strigoi have attacked Moroi in public.**_ _**Groups of Strigoi have raided academies exactly like this one.**_

Yeah, and when they did, we, the alchemists, had to clean it up. That was never a pretty sight.

_**There are Strigoi who have lived for thousands of years and fed off generations of Moroi. They're almost impossible to kill. And **_**that**_** is why Moroi numbers are dropping.**_

Rose was starting to look contrite. Maybe she hadn't really thought of what might happen if Strigoi had caught up with them.

_**They aren't strong enough — even with guardians — to protect themselves. Some Moroi don't even see the point of running anymore and are simply turning Strigoi by choice.**_

"Disgusting," Christian spat.

_**And as the Moroi disappear . . ."**_

"_**. . . so do the dhampirs," I finished.**_

"And suddenly we go from hilarious to somber," noted Adrian.

"I hope we get back to funny soon," Lissa said, looking concerned for her friend.

"_**Well," he said, licking sprayed spit off his lips.**_

"Ew! Way too much information! Why is he so gross? And why does the book feel the need to describe it?" Mia whined. I can't say I didn't agree with her.

"_**It looks like you learned something after all. Now we'll just have to see if you can learn enough to pass this class and qualify for your field experience next semester."**_

Rose looked excited for the first time this chapter at the thought of field experience. I guess that was something dhampirs looked forward to for a long time.

_**Ouch. I spent the rest of that horrible class — in my seat, thankfully — repeating those last words in my mind.**_

"Well that sounds like a fun way to pass the time," Christian put in sardonically.

_**The senior-year field experience was the best part of a novice's education.**_

Well, I guess that answered that thought for me.

_**We'd have no classes for half a semester.**_

Where would the fun be in that?

_**Instead, we'd each be assigned to a Moroi student to guard and follow around.**_

Which cements the idea of it being experience for what they do in the field, I guess, in case anyone had missed that.

_**The adult guardians would monitor us and test us with staged attacks and other threats.**_

_And that's supposed to be fun?_ I guess it was, judging by the looks on Rose and Eddie's faces.

When Rose noticed Adrian's questioning look, she said, "If I know I'm going to be caught anyway, I might as well enjoy the perks of being there."

"_If_ you can pass your courses and get caught up," Dimitri pointed out.

"Hush, Comrade. I can do it. If it's for Lissa, I can do anything!" She pushed her chest out and put her hands on her hips in a Superman pose. I couldn't help but notice Adrian's eyes went straight to her pushed out breasts. _Men._

_**How a novice passed that field experience**_ _**was almost as important as all the rest of her grades combined.**_

"Way to overemphasis the female novices, Rose," Eddie remarked.

She shrugged. "We're superior and you know it. Ain't that right . . ." She paused, looking puzzled, then shrugged and continued, "Koala."

I stared at her. "My name's Sydney."

Meanwhile Adrian was pointing and smiling enthusiastically. "See? It's catching on! We call the tall Russian dude Comrade, and the strange human girl with the lily tattoo Koala!"

I cringed, and this time it had nothing to do with being stuck in a room with vampires. "Though koalas do live on the eastern coast of Australia, I'd be willing to bet you'd be hard pressed to find one anywhere inside the city of Sydney except in a zoo."

"She spoke! And not just reading from the book. She actually spoke! And at least twenty-five words, even!" Adrian stared at me wide-eyed.

I stared at him an appropriate length of time before I turned back to the book. Just as I looked down, I saw him make a goofy face at me. I quickly glanced back up at him and frowned, but didn't let my gaze linger.

_**It could influence which Moroi she got after graduation.**_

_**And me? There was only one Moroi I wanted.**_

Lissa beamed at Rose. "Thank you."

"Any time." Rose winked.

_**Two classes later, I finally earned my lunch escape. As I stumbled across campus toward the commons, Dimitri fell into step beside me, not looking particularly godlike — unless you counted his godly good looks.**_

Dimitri flushed.

"Comrade's got the girls chasing him! They're all up in his grill!" Adrian called out.

We all stared at him. "What the hell is that?" Rose asked.

He shrugged. "Just mixing it up a bit."

"Alrighty then." Rose looked satisfied with that answer, and I took that as my cue to continue.

"_**I suppose you saw what happened in Stan's class?" I asked, not bothering with titles.**_

"No, you think?" Mia mocked. Rose glared at her.

"_**Yes."**_

"Way to state what we already know, Comrade," Eddie laughed.

"She asked," Dimitri muttered.

"_**And you don't think that was unfair?"**_

"Hell yeah it was," Rose bellowed.

"_**Was he right? Do you think you were fully prepared to protect Vasilisa?"**_

Dimitri shot a meaningful look at Rose.

_**I looked down at the ground. "I kept her alive," I mumbled.**_

"You'd think that'd be worth more," she grumbled.

Lissa rubbed Rose's arm. "It means a lot to me," she said with a smile. Rose smiled back.

"_**How did you do fighting against your classmates today?"**_

"Ouch."

_**The question was mean.**_

"Yep, that about sums it up." Rose nodded.

_**I didn't answer and knew I didn't need to. I'd had another training class after Stan's, and no doubt Dimitri had watched me get beat up there too.**_

Adrian frowned at Dimitri, then looked at Rose. "Well, I hope that when this happens in the future that you're okay."

Rose grinned at Adrian. "Thank you. Me too."

"_**If you can't fight **_**them**_**—"**_

"_**Yeah, yeah, I know," I snapped.**_

"Wow, you're just getting yelled at all over the place that day," Eddie commented.

"Wow, it sounds funny having to speak in the future tense," Lissa added. I don't think she meant to make fun of Eddie's use of the word "wow" when she said it, but it kind of sounded like she was.

_**He slowed his long stride to match my pain-filled one.**_

"Thanks for the consideration," quipped Rose.

"_**You're strong and fast by nature. You just need to keep yourself trained. Didn't you play any sports while you were gone?"**_

Rose snorted, which I took as a no.

"_**Sure," I shrugged. "Now and then."**_

So, better than I'd thought. Definitely better than if it had been me.

"_**You didn't join any teams?"**_

This earned another snort.

"_**Too much work. If I'd wanted to practice that much, I'd have stayed here."**_

Dimitri stared blankly at her. I was surprised at how silent Janine and Abe were. Well, less so with Abe, because he seemed to always be kind of quiet, but it was a little surprising for Janine.

_**He gave me an exasperated look. "You'll never be able to really protect the princess if you don't hone your skills. You'll always be lacking."**_

"Thanks for the pep talk," she sassed.

"_**I'll be able to protect her," I said fiercely.**_

Rose put her arm around Lissa and squeezed her tight for a moment.

"_**You have no guarantees of being assigned to her, you know — for your field experience **_**or**_** after you graduate."**_

"Wow, thanks for that, Comrade." Rose's brow furrowed, and her eyes looked sad.

_**Dimitri's voice was low and unapologetic. They hadn't given me a warm and fuzzy mentor.**_

"Yay. Good to know that ahead of time." She snuck a glance in his direction. He was looking off into space.

"_**No one wants to waste the bond — **_

"Is that all I'm good for?" Rose complained.

"At the moment, yes," Dimitri told her.

_**but no one's going to give her an inadequate guardian either. If you want to be with her, then you need to work for it.**_

"Then I guess I work." Rose nodded decisively.

Dimitri's face thawed some when she said that, though she wasn't looking.

_**You have your lessons. You have me. Use us or don't**_

Adrian giggled. I was glad I wasn't telepathic. I didn't want to know what he was thinking.

_**You're an idea choice to guard Vasilisa when you both graduate — if you can probe you're worthy. I hope you will."**_

Rose looked somber. "Anything for Lissa."

"_**Lissa, call her Lissa," I corrected. She hated her full name, much preferring the Americanized nickname.**_

Lissa nodded happily.

_**He walked away, and suddenly, I didn't feel like such a badass anymore.**_

"Don't worry Rose! You're still a badass in my book!" Adrian crowed happily.

She smiled. "Thank you, Adrian."

_**By now, I'd burned up a lot of time leaving class.**_

"Sucky," Eddie commented.

_**Most everyone else had long since sprinted inside the commons for lunch, eager to maximize their social time. I'd almost made it back there myself when a voice under the door's overhand called to me.**_

"What now?" Rose sighed.

"How do you know it's not your fairy godmother come to grant all your wishes?" Adrian asked.

She stared at him, and didn't bother to answer.

"_**Rose?"**_

_**Peering in the voice's direction, I caught sight of Victor Dashkov, his kind face smiling at me as he leaned on a cane near the building's wall.**_

An elated look came over Lissa's face at the mention of her "uncle." Rose didn't look quite as excited as Lissa, but she still looked happy.

_**His two guardians stood nearby at a polite distance.**_

If I hadn't had any previous knowledge about Moroi and dhampir culture, I would have absolutely no clue what was going on in this book.

"_**Mr. Dash—er, Your Highness. Hi."**_

"She goes from the formal 'Your Highness' to the decidedly informal 'hi,'" Christian observed.

_**I caught myself just in time, having nearly forgotten Moroi royal terms. I hadn't used them while living among humans.**_

"I wouldn't think so." Abe raised an eyebrow.

_**The Moroi choose their rulers from among twelve royal families. The eldest in the family got the title of "prince" or "princess."**_

Moroi traditions were so strange.

_**Lissa had gotten hers because she was the only one left in her line.**_

Lissa looked at the floor, her eyes welling with tears. Rose hugged her close, and Lissa buried her head in her best friend's shoulder.

"_**How was your day?" he asked.**_

"Awful, apparently, yours?" Rose joked.

Lissa sniffed, laughed once breathily, and sat up, wiping her eyes.

"_**Not over yet." I tried to think of something conversational. "Are you visiting here for a while?"**_

"No, you think?" Mia mocked.

"No, she doesn't." Christian smirked.

Rose frowned and glared at them as they cackled together.

"_**I'll be leaving this afternoon after I saw hello to Natalie. When I heard Vasilisa — and you —**_

"Way to leave the dhampir as an after though," Rose grumbled.

_**had returned, I simply had to come see you."**_

"That doesn't sound creepy or anything," Adrian noted.

_**I nodded, not sure what else to say. He was more Lissa's friend than mine.**_

"Come on man, just let a girl go get some lunch," whined Rose.

"_**I wanted to tell you . . ." He spoke hesitantly.**_

"Spit it out." Christina raised his eyebrows.

"_**I understand the gravity of what you did, but I think Headmistress Kirova failed to acknowledge something.**_

"I think she's failed to acknowledge a lot of things over the years," Eddie muttered.

_**You **_**did**_** keep Vasilisa safe all this time. **_

"Why must everyone call me by my full name?" Lissa moaned.

_**That is very impressive."**_

"Why, thank you." Rose drew herself up and puffed out her chest.

"_**Well, it's not like I faced down Strigoi or anything," I said.**_

"C'mon, future me, have faith in yourself!"

"_**But you faced down some things?"**_

Lissa nodded, and it didn't appear to be done particularly happily.

"_**Sure. The school sent psi-hounds once."**_

"No, we didn't," Dimitri protested.

"I don't think I imagined the psi-hounds," Rose told him.

He raised an eyebrow and looked troubled, but remained silent.

"_**Remarkable."**_

"I know, right?" Rose crowed.

"_**Not really. Avoiding them was pretty easy."**_

"Don't diminish your victory Rose. You were amazing when they showed up," Lissa praised. Rose smiled at her.

_**He laughed. "I've hunted with them before. They aren't **_**that**_** easy to evade, not with their powers and intelligence."**_

"I love how he still makes it sound relatively easy. Just not _that _easy." Eddie snorted and shook his head.

_**It was true. Psi-hounds were one of many types of magical creatures that wandered the world, creatures hat humans never knew about or else didn't believe they'd seen.**_

That was a terrifying thought. Everyone turned to stare at me. I watched them back with wide eyes, not wanting to look away. Eventually everyone turned their attention elsewhere, one by one, and Adrian gestured for me to continue.

_**The hounds traveled in packs and shared a sort of psychic communication that made them particularly deadly to their prey — as did the fact that they resembled mutant wolves.**_

I shuddered at the thought. Mutant wolves. Strigoi. This world had a lot of awful things in it.

"_**Did you face anything else?"**_

_**I shrugged. "Little things here and there."**_

"Naturally." Christian looked bored. "You can't expect to live outside an academy without having to face little problems."

"_**Remarkable."**_

"Rose really is, isn't she?" Adrian said to the book. I assumed he was talking to this Victor guy.

"_**Lucky, I think. It turns out I'm really behind in all this guardian stuff." **_

"'_Guardian stuff_,'" Janine quoted with a scoff.

_**I sounded just like Stan now.**_

"Woah. And time to stop talking now." Rose's eyes were wide.

"_**You're a smart girl. You'll catch up.**_

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," she said with a smile.

_**And you also have your bond."**_

"Must we focus on that?" Lissa asked, sighing.

"Yep," Adrian put in cheerfully.

_**I looked away. My ability to "feel" Lissa had been such a secret for so long, it felt weird to have others know about it.**_

Rose and Lissa both pursed their lips and looked at each other, then nodded.

"_**The histories are full of stories of guardians who could feel when their charges were in danger," Victor continued.**_

"Really? Huh. Maybe I should have paid more attention in class." Rose frowned.

"_**I've made a hobby of studying up on it and some of the ancient ways.**_

"Fun," Christian said sarcastically.

_**I've heard it's a tremendous asset."**_

Rose shrugged. "Sometimes."

"_**I guess." I shrugged.**_

Huh. That was almost exactly what Rose had done here. A different word, but the meaning was basically the same.

**What a boring hobby**_**, I thought, imagining him pouring over prehistoric histories in some dank library covered in spiderwebs.**_

That sounded like a lot of fun to me, actually, but I wasn't about to say that aloud. And prehistoric histories was an oxymoron, I couldn't help but notice.

_**Victor tilted his head, curiosity all over his face. Kirova and the others had had the some look when we'd mentioned our connection, like we were lab rats.**_

"How great," Rose grumbled. The others looked like they thought that'd be awful too.

"_**What is it like — if you don't mind my asking?"**_

The curiosity in the room was piqued again, and everyone turned to look at Lissa and Rose.

"Lacking privacy," Lissa stated. Rose nodded in agreement.

"_**It's . . . I don't know. I just sort of always have this hum of how she feels.**_

Lissa was watching Rose with interest.

_**Usually it's just emotions. We can't send messages or anything."**_

"Of course not. It's one way," Rose pointed out.

_**I didn't tell him about slipping into her head.**_

Lissa's lips flattened into a straight line. Obviously she wasn't too fond of having Rose inside her mind, seeing through her eyes.

_**That part of it was hard even for me to understand.**_

Even _I_ didn't know how that was possible, and most people thought of me as a brainiac.

"_**But it doesn't work the other way? She doesn't sense you?"**_

"No. She just said that the bond was one way. Pay attention," Adrian scolded. Most of the others laughed at his idiocy. I was just hoping he was faking it.

_**I shook my head.**_

_**His face shone with wonder. "How did it happen?"**_

The attention of the room swivelled back to Rose and Lissa.

"I have no idea," Lissa commented at the same time that Rose said, "I wish I knew."

"_**I don't know," I said, still glancing away. "Just started two years ago."**_

"Right around the time you ran away, then," Abe observed.

_**He frowned. "Near the time of the accident?"**_

"That too," Dimitri noted. The adults looked deep in thought, and I didn't know what they were thinking about. I felt like I was missing something.

_**Hesitantly, I nodded. The accident was **_**not**_** something I wanted to talk about, that was for sure. **_

"Me either," Lissa murmured.

_**Lissa's memories were bad enough without my own mixing into them.**_

"You can see her memories, too?" Abe asked.

"Some of them. But remember, she has that nightmare a lot where she relives the accident," Rose mentioned.

Abe nodded thoughtfully and gestured for me to continue. I hastily obeyed.

_**Twisted metal. A sensation of hot, then cold, then hot again. Lissa screaming over me, screaming for me to wake up, screaming for her parents and her brother to wake up.**_

Lissa turned her newly tear stained face toward Rose, who took her into her arms and held her close.

_**None of them had, only me. And the doctors said that was a miracle in itself. They said I shouldn't have survived.**_

It was impressive how often the book switched from light-hearted to somber, and I don't mean impressive in a good way.

_**Apparently sensing my discomfort, Victor let the moment go and returned to his earlier excitement.**_

"Glad someone can," Eddie muttered.

"_**I can still barely believe this. It's been so long since this has happened.**_

"Obviously not. Obviously it happened about a year and a half ago," remarked Adrian.

_**If it did happen more often . . . just think of what it could do for the safety of all Moroi.**_

Janine looked wistful. "That would be fantastic."

_**If only others could experience this too.**_

"I think they'd get sick of it real quick," Rose asserted.

_**I'll have to do more research and see if we can replicate it with others."**_

The full guardians looked wistful at the thought of how much easier their job would be if they could be linked to their Moroi at all times, but Rose just looked doubtful. "Yeah, you do that."

"_**Yeah." I was getting impatient despite how much I liked him.**_

"No doubt," Eddie quipped.

_**Natalie rambled a lot, and it was pretty clear which parent she'd inherited **_**that**_** quality from.**_

Lissa laughed, pulling away from Rose's side. "Rose! That's mean."

"It's not mean if it's true," Rose declared.

_**Lunch was ticking down, and although Moroi and novices shared afternoon classes, Lissa and I wouldn't have much time to talk.**_

"Not that I get the feeling you won't talk to her anyway, right through class," Janine speculated.

"Yep, that sounds about right." Rose sounded chipper.

"_**Perhaps we could—"**_ _**He started coughing, a great, seizing fit that made his whole body shake.**_

"That's not great, Rose. How rude," Adrian accused.

"Adrian, not great as in 'Wow, that's great!' Great as in big," Rose retorted.

"Oh."

_**His disease, Sandovsky's Syndrome, took the lungs down with it while dragging the body toward death.**_

How pleasant. That didn't sound like something anyone deserved, regardless of if they're a vampire or a human.

_**I cast an anxious look at his guardians, and one of them stepped forward. **_

"Good." Rose nodded.

"_**Your Highness," he said politely, "you need to go inside. It's too cold out here."**_

"Is he really saying that for Victor, or does he just want to go inside himself?" wondered Adrian.

Lissa looked at him and shook her head.

_**Victor nodded. "Yes, yes. And I'm sure Rose here wants to eat."**_

"Yes," she affirmed.

_**He turned to me. "Thank you for speaking to me. **_

"Not like I had a whole lot of choice. Walking away would have been rude," she jested.

_**I can't emphasize how much it means to me that Vasilisa is safe — **_

"Again with the full name," Lissa complained.

"You're not even actually around when he does it," Rose pointed out. "He's just trying to be respectful."

Lissa huffed. "As if I care about that."

Rose shrugged.

_**and that you helped with that.**_

"Always an afterthought, Rose." Christian seemed to enjoy his attempts to hurt Rose's feelings. It was a pretty awful quality in him.

_**I'd promised her father I'd look after her if anything happened to him, and I felt like quite the failure when you left."**_

"Never thought about that, did you?" Mia teased cruelly.

_**A sinking sensation filled my stomach as I imagined him wracked with guilt and worry over our disappearance.**_

"No, I hadn't," Rose said softly. She stared off into space, looking but not seeing.

_**Until now, I hadn't really thought about how others might have felt about us leaving.**_

"Personally, I missed you," Eddie said with a sweet smile. Rose returned it.

"Personally, I didn't care," Christian said. Mia nodded along with him.

_**We made our goodbyes, and I finally arrived inside the school.**_

"Finally," Rose breathed.

_**As I did, I felt Lissa's anxiety spike.**_

"Uh-oh."

_**Ignoring the pain in my legs,**_

"And everywhere else, I imagine." Rose made a face.

_**I picked up my pace into the commons.**_

"Let's see what's going on," Adrian said, bouncing in place.

_**And nearly ran right into her.**_

"Huh." He stopped his bouncing, looking a little disappointed.

"I don't think we've heard the entire situation yet, Adrian," Rose told him.

"Oh."

_**She didn't see me, though. Neither did the people standing with her: Aaron and that little doll girl.**_

Attention turned to Mia. Rose glared. Lissa looked none-too-happy.

_**I stopped and listened, just catching the end of the conversation. The girl leaned toward Lissa, who seemed more stunned than anything else.**_

There were more glares in Mia's direction. Eddie added to the intensity of Rose's look.

"_**It looks to **_**me**_** like it came from a garage sale. I thought a precious Dragomir would have standards."**_

Lissa looked hurt. I guess she had a thing about her fashion. A thing called _vanity_. Not that I was saying I wasn't vain — I counted calories the way an insomniac counts sheep.

_**Scorn dripped off the word **_**Dragomir**_**.**_

Rose looked like she was about to get up off her seat and throttle the girl. Lissa held her back. "We don't want to be stuck in here with her in critical condition, especially when we start to get hungry."

That was not a reassuring thought for me. I was the only human in a room of vampires. If one of them got hungry, who do you think will be the first one to go down? That's right. This girl.

_**Grabbing Doll Girl by the shoulder, I jerked her away. She was so light, she stumbed three feet and nearly fell.**_

Rose laughed harshly. I couldn't really blame her, though.

"_**She does have standards," I said, "which is why you're done talking to her."**_

"That's the end of the chapter." I happily closed the book (with the bookmark safely tucked inside, and passed it to Dimitri, who sat to my right.

As I got up to make some coffee with the machine I'd noticed earlier, conversation started behind me.

"Why are you such a bitch?" Rose asked Mia.

I heard no response, and assumed she had made some sort of facial expression. There was a shuffling and a yell, and I ducked and looked back over my shoulder, arms protecting my head. Rose had lunged at Mia, and was now shouting at her. "Don't you dare do anything to hurt Lissa! You won't even live to regret it!" Dimitri and Eddie held her back, but she seemed to be almost escaping their hold.

"Calm down, Rose. She hasn't done anything. She knows better than to do anything in here." Lissa spoke calmly, rationally. Rose frowned and glared, but sat back in her seat. She was calmed down enough that I felt safe enough to start the coffee.

It was ready just as everyone sat back down in their seats. "Come on, Koala! Let's get going before someone tries to tear someone else's throat out!" Adrian called to me.

Pursing my lips, I grabbed the green mug and hurried back to my seat just as Dimitri read, "Chapter four."

***Review!***


	5. Chapter 4

***It's never mentioned in the books, but I've decided to take a little creative licensing on Abe's elemental specialty.***

_**We didn't have the entire commons' attention this time, **_

"Thank God," Lissa breathed.

I chuckled. They certainly thought alike.

_**thank God, but a few passing people stopped to stare.**_

"Well, of course. If there's a fight, everyone's gonna watch," my friend Tasha's nephew Christian said.

"You realize that's what we do every day, right? Fight?" the dhampir named Eddie Castile questioned as though he thought Christian was stupid.

"Of course. But it's different when it's not controlled."

"Inasmuch as fighting can ever be controlled," Sydney muttered to herself beside me.

"_**What the hell do you think you're doing?" asked Doll Girl, blue eyes wide and sparkling with fury.**_

"Obviously I'm starting a fight," Rose crowed. Mia glowered.

_**Up close now, I was able to get a better look at her.**_

"That's usually how it works, Rose." Adrian gave a lopsided smile.

_**She had the same slim build as most Moroi, but not the usual height, which was partly what made her look so young.**_

Everyone turned their attention to Mia. She sat up a little straighter, but crossed her arms over her chest, sending mixed messages. Sitting up like she wanted the attention, crossing her arms like she was defensive. One of them was intentionally done, and I wondered which. I was pretty sure it was the arm crossing. People didn't usually put effort into accepting attention. That was a natural thing.

_**The tiny purple dress she wore was gorgeous — **_

We looked at her now. She had on a blue flowing shirt with a silver design, and what I thought to be designer jeans, though I certainly wasn't up on fashion.

_**reminding me that I was indeed dressed in thrift-shop wear —**_

Mia grinned, and it seemed triumphant.

_**but closer inspection led me to think it was a designer knockoff.**_

Rose leaned in a little closer, and Mia's grin was wiped off her face. Soon Rose was wearing a similar one. "They are!" she announced. Now the other girl slouched down, assuming the traditional defensive position that generally went along with arm crossing.

_**I crossed my arms across my chest.**_

Well, that was ironic.

"_**Are you lost, little girl? The elementary school's over on west campus."**_

Mia huffed and puffed out her chest, a flush crossing over her cheeks. I think everyone was forgetting that this wasn't actually happening right now, and that they'd have to live through it again. No point getting huffy over things that hadn't even happened yet. Not that I believed one hundred percent that this was really the future.

_**A pink flush spread over her cheeks.**_

This Richelle chick was pretty good at predicting their reactions, though.

"_**Don't you ever touch me again.**_

"Oh, somehow I think I will. Watch me." Rose leaned over Eddie and Christian and poked the girls arm. Mia seethed.

_**You screw with me, and I'll screw you right back."**_

Several people around the room burst out laughing, and I had to wait for them to calm down. I didn't quite get it. I mean, I understood the sexual reference, but I felt like I was missing something. Maybe not. Maybe I was just more mature. That I could certainly believe.

_**Oh man, what an opening that was.**_

"Please tell me you say something awesome!" Adrian cried.

Rose rubbed her hands together in gleeful anticipation.

_**Only a head shake from Lissa stopped me from unleashing any number of hilarious comebacks.**_

"Aw," Adrian groaned. "Well, that was anticlimactic."

_**Instead, I opted for simple brute force, so to speak.**_

Abe grinned, and it was eerily similar to the one that graced Rose's face. Huh.

"Well, this could be good," Adrian commented.

"_**And if you mess with either of us again, I'll break you in half.**_

"Nice!" Adrian cheered. This guy was starting to grate on my nerves.

_**If you don't believe me, go ask Dawn Yarrow about what I did to her arm in ninth grade.**_

"What happened then?" Abe asked, that twinkle back in his eye. I was wary of him. I'd heard rumors about the notorious Ibrahim Mazur.

"I'm sure it'll say." Rose waved the Moroi off without a thought. Not something I'd do. I wasn't sure if she was ballsy or if she didn't know to be cautious.

_**You were probably at nap time when it happened."**_

Mia glared around the room, but mostly at Rose. "I'll have you know I am almost the same age as you are. Not that that's something to be proud of." She sniffed.

_**The incident with Dawn hadn't been one of my finer moments.**_

"At least she admits it," I mumbled, mostly to myself. Rose glared at me.

_**I honestly hadn't expected to break any bones when I shoved her into a tree.**_

Abe chuckled.

Eddie laughed. "I remember that!"

_**Still, the incident had given me a dangerous reputation, in addition to my smartass one.**_

"Yeah, 'cause you needed that," Eddie joked. Rose winked at him.

_**The story had gained legendary status, and I liked to imagine that it was still being told around campfires late at night.**_

"Oh, it is." Christian pulled himself out of his snark enough to laugh at that. Then he remembered he didn't like us and went back to ignoring us.

_**Judging by the look on this girl's face, it was.**_

Mia sneered again, and I was sure she was covering up the same expression she would have been wearing in the book.

_**One of the patrolling staff members strolled by right then, casting suspicious eyes at our little meeting.**_

I'd been wondering when that would happen. Guardians were everywhere in the academy. It was hard for a conflict like that to go unnoticed for very long.

_**Doll Girl backed off, taking Aaron's arm. "Come on," she said.**_

"I have a name, you know!" she cried, flinging her arms up.

"I know," Rose said happily. "I just don't care."

"_**Hey, Aaron," I said cheerfully, remembering he was there. **_

"You forgot about him?" Eddie laughed.

"_**Nice to see you again."**_

"Very convincing. I believe you!" Adrian cried dramatically, reaching out as though to clutch at Rose. She laughed.

_**He gave me a quick nod and an uneasy smile, just as the girl dragged him off.**_

"Poor Aaron," Rose sniggered.

"He always seems pretty okay with it," Mia announced.

_**Same old Aaron. He might be nice and cute, but aggressive he was not.**_

"Very unlike you," Mia scoffed.

"Unlike a lot of us in this room," she shot back.

_**I turned to Lissa. "You okay?" She nodded. "Any idea who I just threatened to beat up?"**_

"You don't even know!" Mia exclaimed. "You threatened to break me in half and you don't even know who I am?"

Lissa, as the book continued to call her, chuckled. "She does that a lot."

"Not a _lot,"_ Rose countered. "Just whenever someone threatens you."

Lissa gave her a pointed look.

"Okay, or whenever someone pisses me off."

Lissa just kept staring at her.

"Okay, so a lot," Rose conceded.

"_**Not a clue."**_

"You don't know either? Don't I have at least somewhat of a reputation around this school?"

Eddie shook his head as Christian said, "No, not really."

Mia sighed.

_**I started to lead her toward the lunch line, but she shook her head at me. "Gotta go see the feeders."**_

The dhampirs around the room made a face. Gross.

_**A funny feeling settled over me.**_

Janine's jaw was set off from it's normal position. She had a feeling what was going to happen.

_**I'd gotten so used to being her primary blood source**_

"Oh God." Rose sank deeper into the couch next to Lissa.

_**that the thought of returning to the Moroi's normal routine seemed strange.**_

Everyone averted their eyes from each other. None of us wanted to hear this. I especially didn't want to have to say it aloud. But I kept going anyway. It was the only way we were going to get out of here. And I really didn't like feeling trapped and helpless.

_**In fact, it almost bothered me.**_

Rose groaned.

_**It shouldn't have.**_

"No," Janine agreed.

_**Daily feedings were a part of a Moroi's life, something I hadn't been able to offer her while living on our own.**_

And we all knew now what they'd been doing instead.

_**It had been an inconvenient situation, one that left me weak on feeding days and her weak on the days in between.**_

Abe looked thoughtful. "Surely you could have come up with a better system," he mused.

"We are so not commenting on this," Rose said, arm thrown over her eyes, head leaning against the back of the couch.

Abe shrugged, but kept further commentary to himself.

_**I should have been happy she would get some normality.**_

Mia made a face. "How gross."

_**I forced a smile. "Sure."**_

"Thata girl!" Adrian applauded. It gave a relief from the tension that filled the room, and I was grateful to him for that.

_**We walked into the feeding room, which sat adjacent to the cafeteria.**_

There was only two people in the room that didn't know that: Abe and Sydney the alchemist.

_**It was set up with small cubicles, dividing**_ _**the room's space in an effort to offer privacy.**_

Abe looked like he really didn't care, but Sydney looked interested. The rest of us, who already knew this, were simply bored, but glad to have the tension lifted.

_**A dark-haired Moroi woman greeted us at the entrance and glanced down at her clipboard, flipping through the pages.**_

"I'm not such a fan of women with clipboards," Adrian told the room. "Unless they're sexy women with clipboards. Like I imagine our lovely Koala over here is." He smiled fondly at the alchemist. If I'd dropped my guardian mask, I would have been grimacing. Womanizer.

_**Finding what she needed, she made a few notes and then gestured for Lissa to follow.**_

"Come here! Come here girl! Good Lissa!" Christian mocked, laughing at his own joke.

_**Me she gave a puzzled look, but she didn't stop me from entering.**_

"Want to see what you're missing?" Mia sneered.

"Want me to follow through on my threat a little early?" Rose leaned towards the smaller girl, hand curled into a fist.

I hurried on before it could escalate.

_**She led us to one of the cubicles where a plump, middle-aged woman sat leafing through a magazine.**_

Sydney shuddered violently, despite her attempts to repress it. I knew what she was feeling, because I felt it too: disgust that anyone would do that, allow themselves to be fed on by vampires for the rush. At least when Rose and Lissa did it, it was out of necessity.

_**She looked up at our approach and smiled. In her eyes, I could see the dreamy, glazed-over look most feeders had.**_

Everyone had the same look of disdain and disgust on their faces now.

_**She'd probably neared her quota for the day, judging from how high she appeared to be.**_

"Ugh." Mia shuddered delicately, her nose upturned.

_**Recognizing Lissa, her smile grew. "Welcome back, Princess."**_

"She remembers you?" Eddie asked, surprised.

Lissa, also astonished, shrugged.

"And through the high . . ." Christian trailed off, confused. None of us could explain it, so after an appropriate pause, I went on.

_**The greeter left us,**_

"What a boring job that would be," Adrian cut in.

_**and Lissa sat down in the chair beside the woman. I sensed a feeling of discomfort in her, a little different from my own.**_

"Only a little." Janine's comment walked the line between question and statement.

Lissa and Rose both shrugged. "Hasn't happened yet. Can't help you," Rose told her mother.

_**This was weird for her too; it had been a long time.**_

"Not _that_ long," Janine muttered. "Not when it's something you've done your whole life."

"Long enough," Rose defended her best friend.

_**The feeder, however, had no such reservations.**_

"Of course not," Eddie stated.

_**An eager look crossed her face — the look of a junkie about to get her next fix.**_

There were some mock-gagging sounds. Although maybe they weren't quite so mocked.

_**Disgust poured into me.**_

And the rest of the room.

_**It was an old instinct, one that had been drilled in over the years.**_

We'd all had it drilled into us, from such a young age most of us couldn't remember not being disgusted by it. I couldn't, at least. I assumed the others couldn't either.

_**Feeders were essential to Moroi life.**_

We all knew this. Even Sydney, who wasn't an integral part of our culture. Important, yes, but not a center piece.

_**They were humans who willingly volunteered to be a regular blood source, humans from the fringes of society who gave their lives over to the secret world of the Moroi.**_

Blah, blah, blah. Even my mind was starting to shut itself off.

_**They were well cared for and given all the comforts they could need.**_

Scanning down, I saw we were only halfway through the paragraph. Damn.

_**But at the heart of it, they were drug users, addicts to Moroi saliva and the rush it offered with each bite.**_

"It doesn't matter the culture. Drug users always equal bad!" Adrian said, tapping a cigarette from a pack pulled from his jeans. I wasn't sure whether or not the irony was intentional. He stuck it between his lips and lit it with a lighter he produced from another pocket.

"Hey!" several people cried.

"I think we should designate the room a no-smoking area," Lissa said.

"Yeah! We don't want to have to deal with that stench," Rose added.

"Excuse me! My cigarettes smell great," he retorted.

"Only to you."

"Well, I don't see any alcohol right now. I've gotta have at least one of my vices." He winked and puffed on the cigarette. The scent of cloves billowed up.

Eddie got up and closed the door to the bedroom. "At least that way we can sleep without the smell."

Except for me. I shot a glance at the bed I'd woken up in, but didn't say anything about how clouds of smoke gathered around the bottom.

_**The Moroi — and guardians — looked down on this dependency, even though the Moroi couldn't have survived otherwise unless they took their victims by force.**_

And that would never happen. They were too nature-loving. Well, most of them.

_**Hypocrisy at its finest.**_

That described Adrian Ivashkov, if you asked me. But no one did, so I kept reading.

_**The feeder tilted her head, giving Lissa full access to her neck. Her skin was marked with scars from years of daily bites.**_

"What about you, Rose? Do you have any bite scars?" Mia provoked.

"Must you?" Lissa breathed, at the same time as Rose jumped to her feet, ready to brawl. Lissa laid a calming hand on Rose's arm, and after a moment of simmering, she sat back down, glowering at, as she liked to say, Doll Girl.

_**The infrequent feedings Lissa and I had done had kept my neck clear; my bite marks never lasted more than a day or so.**_

"Happy?" Rose grumbled.

"Not particularly, no," Mia responded, though she did look more gleeful than she had moments before.

_**Lissa leaned forward, fangs biting into the feeder's yielding flesh.**_

"Descriptive," Christian commented.

_**The woman closed her eyes, making a soft sound of pleasure.**_

Someone, I wasn't sure who, made a chortling sound in the back of their throat. I could guess their thoughts, but didn't see the humor.

_**I swallowed, watching Lissa drink.**_

"Perverse," noted Christian.

_**I couldn't see any blood, but I could imagine it.**_

"Why would you want to?" Mia asked, sounding _almost_ interested. Almost.

_**A surge of emotion grew in my chest: longing. Jealousy.**_

Lissa hugged her friend. I figured she felt bad. She probably hadn't known Rose felt that way.

Rose stared at the floor, off to her left.

_**I averted my eyes, staring at the floor.**_

Yep, Richelle really knew Rose and Lissa. I wondered if I'd get to see how well she knew me. The thought kind of crept me out.

_**Mentally, I scolded myself.**_

"I think if you'd voiced this, you wouldn't have been the only one scolding yourself," Christian said, smirking. He really liked to stir up trouble.

"It hasn't happen yet. So really, me now has no control over me in the book or what she does," retorted Rose.

**What's wrong with you?**

"What an opening that is," Mia said, repeating the book's earlier sentiment towards her.

**Why should you miss it?**

"A good question," Janine murmured.

**You only did it once every day.**

"Which is actually an exaggeration. It was only every couple days," Rose clarified.

**You aren't addicted, not like this.**

Looking at her, I agreed. She certainly didn't seem like an addict.

**And you don't want to be.**

"Who would want to be?" Mia's lip raised in a half-sneer, half-snarl.

_**But I couldn't help myself, couldn't help the way I felt as I recalled the bliss and rush of a vampire's bite.**_

"Certainly sounds like an addict," asserted Mia.

That was true; it did. But I didn't think she was. Not now, anyway. Maybe in the future she would be.

_**Lissa finished and we returned to the commons, moving toward the lunch line.**_

"Mmm, lunch." Rose closed her eyes blissfully at the thought.

"You just ate a whole chicken!" Lissa exclaimed.

Rose shrugged. "I'm hungry again. It's been at least two hours. That's a really long time without food."

"Only for you." Lissa laughed.

"I wonder when we'll get fed again anyway," Adrian said, brow furrowed.

The room grew solemn at the reminder that we were at someone else's beck and whim, and we didn't know whose.

"Hopefully soon," Rose finally said, and the mood lightened enough to keep reading.

_**It was short, since we only had fifteen minutes left, and I strolled up and began to load my plate with french fries and some rounded, bite-sized objects that looked vaguely like chicken nuggets.**_

"Yum!"

"Yeah, wonderful. Things that may or may not actually be meat," Christian said gloomily.

"Yeah! Yum!" repeated Rose. Christian just shook his head.

_**Lissa only grabbed a yogurt.**_

"Blech. Food! Always more food!" She was starting to sound like halfwit. Or a zombie. Or a halfwit zombie.

_**Moroi needed food, as dhampirs and humans did, but rarely had an appetite after drinking blood.**_

"I can imagine. Who would?" Eddie joked.

"_**So how'd classes go?" I asked.**_

"Probably not that well," Rose answered herself.

_**She shrugged.**_

"That well, huh?" Christian asked, laughing.

_**Her face was bright with color and life now.**_

"Another person's blood does that to you, I've heard," Sydney whispered to herself.

"_**Okay. Lots of stares. A **_**lot**_** of stares.**_

"Well, that's to be expected," Janine said.

_**Lots of questions about where we were. Whispering.**_

"Makes sense," Eddie conceded.

"_**Same here," I said.**_

"Well, yeah. You were both missing for — what was it? Two years? That's a long time," Christian said.

_**The attendant checked us out, and we walked toward the tables.**_

"Really strict about their food, huh," Adrian noticed.

_**I gave Lissa a sidelong glance. "You okay with that? They aren't bothering you, are they?"**_

"What a dumb question," Mia said.

Rose glared at her again.

"_**No — it's fine."**_

"Uh-huh." Rose gave Lissa a look that said she didn't believe her.

"I haven't even said it yet!" Lissa cried.

_**The emotions coming through the bond contradicted her words.**_

"Exactly." Rose nodded decisively.

_**Knowing I could feel that, she tried to change the subject by handing me her class schedule.**_

"Nice move." Eddie grinned at her lopsidedly.

_**I looked it over.**_

"Of course," Christian said sardonically.

**1****st**** Period Russian 2**

**2****nd**** Period American Colonial Literature**

**3****rd**** Period Basics of Elemental Control**

**4****th**** Period Ancient Poetry**

—**Lunch—**

**5****th**** Period Animal Behavior and Physiology**

**6****th**** Period Advanced Calculus**

**7****th**** Period Moroi Culture 4**

**8****th**** Period Slavic Art**

Adrian made a face. "How boring."

"And really long," Mia agreed.

"I think it sounds interesting," Sydney murmured.

"Ah, Koala, what a paradox you present," Adrian said fondly.

"He knows the word paradox?" Lissa whispered to Rose. Rose shrugged.

"_**Nerd," I said. "If you were in Stupid Math like me, we'd have the same afternoon schedule."**_

"So she admits she's stupid," Mia sneered.

"No, just said it's Stupid Math. That doesn't mean _I'm _stupid. You know, I'm really starting to resent having my future conversations with my best friend revealed to other people. Talk about an invasion of privacy." Rose crossed her arms.

_**I stopped walking. "Why are you in elemental basics? That's a sophomore class."**_

"I'd been wondering the same thing," Janine said.

Abe looked knowing. I wasn't sure I liked that look.

_**She eyed me. "Because seniors takes specialized classes."**_

"So?" Eddie asked.

Abe smiled. "She hasn't specialized."

Rose and Lissa looked at him, startled. "How . . . ?"

Abe just kept smiling, and said nothing.

_**We fell silent at that.**_

"Apparently Rose being speechless isn't that uncommon a thing," Christian noted.

_**All Moroi wielded elemental magic.**_

"Thanks for that, Rose."

_**It was one of the things that differentiated living vampires from Strigoi, the dead vampires.**_

"One of many," Janine pointed out.

"I did — do — say it's _one_ of the things," Rose defended.

"I never said you were wrong. I was agreeing."

"Oh. Okay."

_**Moroi viewed magic as a gift.**_

"We know this," Mia sang.

"Other readers might not," I reasoned.

_**It was part of their souls and connected them to the world.**_

"Hence why Strigoi don't have any magical abilities," Rose concluded.

_**A long time ago, they had used their magic openly, averting natural disasters and helping with things like food and water production.**_

"I don't know why we don't anymore," Christian said, serious for once.

_**They didn't need to do that as much anymore, **_

"We could certainly help a lot of people if we did," he went on.

_**but the magic was still in their blood.**_

"Which is part of why Strigoi like to drink it so much," added Rose.

_**It burned in them and made them want to reach out to the earth and wield their power.**_

"Very descriptive," I noted.

"Thanks, Comrade."

I sighed. I thought she had given up that nickname. No such luck.

_**Academies like this existed to help Moroi control the magic and learn how to do increasingly complex things with it.**_

"To a point," Christian scoffed.

Everyone (except I) looked at him questioningly, but he didn't elaborate. I knew what he was talking about, because I knew his aunt, Tasha. We were pretty close friends. I'd known Christian for a couple years.

_**Students**_ _**also had to learn the rules that surround magic, rules that had been in place for centuries and were strictly enforced.**_

"Rules. There's always rules," bemoaned Adrian.

_**All Moroi had a small ability in each element.**_

The Moroi all nodded. They knew this first-hand.

_**When they got to be around our age, students "specialized" when one element grew stronger than the others: earth, water, fire, or air.**_

Mia, Christian, and Abe all held up a hand, and their elements sprang to their call. A globe of water appeared on Mia's upturned palm, drawn from the air. A flame popped up above Christian's index finger, and then a powerful gust of wind tore through the room. That would be Abe, I was sure. Not one to do something halfway.

Lissa and Adrian both slumped, neither being able to produce such a display. We'd all just found out about Lissa, but I was surprised by Adrian.

_**Not specializing was like not going through puberty.**_

"Physically impossible?" Eddie joked.

_**And Lissa . . . well, Lissa hadn't specialized yet.**_

Abe looked like the cat who'd gotten the canary.

"_**Is Ms. Carmack still teaching that?**_

Christian nodded affirmative.

_**What'd she say?"**_

"_**She says she's not worried. She thinks it'll come."**_

"It doesn't for everyone," Adrian said, both ominously and bitterly. It was an interesting combination to get into a single statement.

"_**Did you — did you tell her about —"**_

"I wouldn't. Not to anyone," Lissa told Rose.

"Tell her what?" Abe asked. No one answered.

_**Lissa shook her head. "No. Of course not."**_

"Are we ever going to find out?" Abe questioned.

"Probably not," Rose said.

_**We let the subject drop. It was one we thought about a lot but rarely spoke of.**_

"Which is why I doubt we'll hear too much about it," Rose verified.

_**We started moving again, scanning the tables as we decided where to sit.**_

Mia laughed. "Such a hard decision."

_**A few pairs of eyes looked up at us with blatant curiosity.**_

"Just like I would," Rose asserted with a bob of her head.

"_**Lissa!" came a nearby voice.**_

"Oh, who's that?" Lissa sighed. It wasn't even happening yet and she seemed stressed.

_**Glancing over, we saw Natalie waving at us.**_

"Ugh." Rose made a face. Lissa lightly smacked her arm.

_**Lissa and I exchanged looks.**_

Sort of like the ones they were giving each other now, I figured.

_**Natalie was sort of Lissa's cousin in the way Victor was sort of her uncle, but we'd never hung out with her all that much.**_

"I don't hang out with my cousins. My actual cousins," Eddie clarified. "And I don't think I would even if I saw them on a regular basis." One corner of his mouth turned up.

_**Lissa shrugged and headed in that direction. "Why not?"**_

"So many reasons I can think of," Mia said. For once, Rose didn't argue with her.

_**I followed reluctantly. Natalie was nice but also one of the most uninteresting people I knew.**_

Christian and Eddie laughed.

_**Most royals at the school enjoyed a kind of celebrity status, but Natalie had never fit in with that crowd.**_

"Because she's creepy and weird," said Mia. None of the other teenagers disagreed.

_**She was too plain, too uninterested in the politics of the Academy, and too clueless to navigate them anyway.**_

"Honestly, though. Who cares about teenage Moroi politics?" Christian asked, shaking his head.

"Anyone who actually matters to the school?" Mia suggested. "What do you know anyway? You haven't even been mentioned yet."

He looked like he was very much not bothered by that.

_**Natalie's friends eyed us with a quiet curiosity, but she didn't hold back.**_

"Of course not," Rose groaned.

_**She threw her arms around us.**_

"Yippie!" the dark-haired dhampir mocked.

_**Like Lissa, she had jade-green eyes, but her hair was jet black, like Victor's had been before his disease grayed it.**_

"Not that the two of you are anything alike. You're much more interesting," Rose asserted.

"_**You're back!**_

"Thanks for stating the obvious," said Christian.

_**I knew you would be! **_

"Yeah, we're gonna be real thrilled about it too," Rose grumbled.

_**Everyone said you were gone forever, but I never believed that. **_

"If everyone thought we'd be gone forever, why are you looking for us?" Lissa asked, wide-eyed.

"It's the Academy's duty. And it's only right," I answered her.

She pouted slightly.

_**I knew you couldn't stay away.**_

"Yeah, try as we might, we just couldn't. Can't. Won't be able to. Whatever." Rose gave up, thoroughly confused.

_**Why'd you go? There are so many stories about why you left!"**_

"Of course there are," she said.

_**Lissa and I exchanged glances as Natalie prattled on.**_

"Yep, bad idea, going over there," Christian told them. Rose made a face.

"_**Camille said one of you got pregnant and went off to have an abortion, but I knew that couldn't be true.**_

"Of course she did," repeated Rose.

_**Someone else said you went off to hang out with Rose's mom, but I figured Ms. Kirova and Daddy wouldn't have been so upset if you'd turned up there.**_

Tension grew between the Hathaway women. They both seemed to be biting their tongues, and neither made any spitting comments toward the other, so they were making progress.

_**Did you know we might get to be roommates?**_

"Oh yay . . ." Lissa sighed.

_**I was talking to . . ."**_

"Way to leave us hanging, Comrade," Rose scolded.

I looked up, startled. "That's where the tirade ends. If you like, I'm sure I could fathom what she was about to say and keep going."

She backpedaled. "No, no. That's okay."

_**On and on she chatted, flashing her fangs as she spoke.**_

"How impolite," Adrian said, grinning to show fang. I gave him a look, and he just grinned wider.

_**I smiled politely, letting Lissa deal with the onslaught until Natalie asked a dangerous question.**_

"How nice of you," Lissa said flatly, shooting a sidelong glance at Rose, who smiled brightly.

"_**What'd you do for blood, Lissa?"**_

"Uh-oh."

_**The table regarded us questioningly. Lissa froze, but I jumped in, the lie coming effortlessly to my lips.**_

Abe winked. "A good skill to have."

Janine hit him. Not hard, but just enough for him to feel it. I saw him wince, just slightly. I didn't know what the relationship between those two was, but I knew there was more to it than they were letting on.

"_**Oh, it's easy.**_ _**There are a lot of humans who want to do it."**_

Christian snorted. "Yeah. Right."

"_**Really?" asked one of Natalie's friends, wide-eyed.**_

"So very naive," the fire-user sighed.

"_**Yup. You find 'em at parties and stuff.**_

I was amazed they would believe that. Christian was right; they were naive.

_**They're all looking for a fix from something, and they don't really get that a vampire's doing it: most are already so wasted they don't remember anyway."**_

I had to admit, she spun a good story, but it was still so outrageous I couldn't imagine anyone accepting that as the truth. Of course, that was just how sheltered a life from the outside world kids in the Academies led.

_**My already vague details dried up, so I simply shrugged in as cool and confident a way as I could manage.**_

"Smooth." Christian laughed. I was pretty sure he was laughing _at_ her and not _with_ her.

_**It wasn't like any of them knew any better.**_

"Poor children," Adrian cooed. "Don't even know the greatness they're being kept from."

"Ignorance is bliss." Eddie shrugged.

"No. It's not," said Christian flatly.

"_**Like I said, it's easy. Almost easier than with our own feeders."**_

"And that's where you lose it. It was almost believable until then, for people who didn't know any better. But feeders at Academies are as easy as walking up to a fridge in your house, instead of going to the grocery store, like your scenario suggests."

"Well, thanks for that, Abe. Glad to have your dissection of my lying abilities."

_**Natalie accepted this and than**_

"It says than. I think it's supposed to say then," I told them.

_**launched into some other topic.**_

"Always got something to say," Rose noted.

_**Lissa shot me a grateful look.**_

"She does that a lot," Eddie observed. Rose nodded, and Lissa blushed.

_**Ignoring the conversation again, I took in the old faces,**_

"Old?" Mia questioned.

"Familiar. Better?" Rose sounded like she didn't really care whether that was better or not.

_**trying to figure out who was hanging out with whom and how power had shifted within the school.**_

"Ah, the hardships of high school." Janine smirked.

"They're just practicing for the real world," Abe said.

_**Mason, sitting with a group of novices, caught my eye, and I smiled. **_

"Mason," Rose said fondly, a smile playing on her lips. "I know I've said it before, but I really miss him."

_**Near him, a group of Moroi royals sat, laughing over something.**_

"Any no one really cares about what," Christian said.

_**Aaron and the blonde girl sat there too.**_

"So glad to be noticed," Mia muttered.

"_**Hey, Natalie," I said, turning around and cutting her off. She didn't seem to notice or mind.**_

"She probably just talks so much because each of her friends are as boring as she is," Rose said, smirking. "And then when anyone deemed more interesting speaks up, they're all so grateful for the change that they shut right up."

"That's some thought you put into that assessment," Lissa said.

Rose nodded happily.

"_**Who's Aaron's new girlfriend?"**_

Mia twirled one of her ringlets around her finger.

"_**Huh? Oh. Mia Rinaldi."**_

"Yep, that's me." She was extra cheerful all of a sudden.

_**Seeing my blank look, she asked, "Don't you remember her?"**_

"Obviously not." Rose snorted.

"_**Should I? Was she here when we left?"**_

"Yeah," Eddie laughed.

"_**She's always been here," said Natalie.**_

"How very observant of you," Mia snarled, no longer happy. She changed moods quickly.

"_**She's only a year younger than us."**_

Rose shrugged.

_**I shot a questioning look at Lissa, who only shrugged.**_

"_**Why is she so pissed off at us?" I asked.**_

Mia smirked, but offered no explanation when Rose looked at her.

"_**Neither of us know her."**_

"You will," Mia said in an almost ominous way.

"_**I don't know," answered Natalie. "Maybe she's jealous about Aaron."**_

Lissa and Rose looked to her. She snorted disdainfully, and turned up her nose.

Rose turned to Lissa. "Yep, I think we figured it out."

_**She wasn't much of anybody when you guys left.**_

Rose smirked, taking pleasure in being better than Mia. Or rather, being friends with someone who was better than Mia.

_**She got **_**really **_**popular **_**really**_** fast.**_

Mia looked proud of herself. If she'd been a bird, she would have been preening her feathers.

_**She isn't royal or anything, but once she started dating Aaron, she—"**_

"Of course not. Rinaldi isn't a royal name." Christian raised his eyebrows.

"_**Okay, thanks," I interrupted. "It doesn't really—"**_

"Matter? Were you going to say I don't matter?" Mia demanded.

"No, I _am_ going to say you don't matter. Except that I'm not, because I get cut off. Or I cut myself off. If you'd shut up for five minutes, we'd find out."

_**My eyes lifted up from Natalie's face to Jesse Zeklos's, just as he passed by our table.**_

Rose chucked. "Jesse. Ah, Jesse."

_**Ah, Jesse.**_

The group broke out laughing.

"I'm starting to believe this Richelle woman," Lissa giggled.

_**I'd forgotten about him.**_

"Until now!" Rose crowed.

_**I liked flirting with Mason and some of the other novices, but Jesse was in an entirely different category.**_

Janine cleared her throat.

"What?" Rose challenged. "I'm not the one saying this in this moment. I can't change what the book is going to say."

The held each other's gaze, neither willing to be the one to look away and admit submission.

_**You flirted with the other guys simply for the sake of flirting.**_

It felt really weird to me to be reading this.

_**You flirted with Jesse in hopes of getting semi-naked with him.**_

"Whoa, Comrade, I didn't know you swung that way," Adrian laughed.

I felt my already red face get several shades darker.

_**He was a royal Moroi, and he was so hot, he should have worn a **__**warning: flammable**_ _**sign.**_

I didn't look up. My face flamed.

_**He met my eyes and grinned.**_

"_**Hey Rose, welcome back. You still breaking hearts?"**_

Rose winked. "Of course."

"_**Are you volunteering?"**_

"Wow, Rose. Future-you is more suave than now-you," Lissa said. Rose looked at her.

_**His grin widened. "Let's hang out sometime and find out. If you ever get patrol."**_

Mia glowered. It probably had something to do with Jesse talking to Rose and not her. I shook my head.

_**He kept walking, and I watched him admiringly.**_

Well, I was glad _that_ was over.

_**Natalie and her friends stared at me in awe.**_

"You magnificent creature, you," Eddie joked, winking and grinning.

_**I might not be a god in the Dimitri sense,**_

I cleared my throat and kept going, ignoring that little bit of weirdness.

_**but with this group, Lissa and I **_**were **_**gods — or at least former gods — of another nature.**_

"Very modest," Christian said sarcastically.

"Come on, you know you're not the pinnacle of humility yourself," Rose retorted.

He shrugged. "Granted."

"_**Oh my gawd," exclaimed one girl.**_

"Oh god," Rose said. "Valley girl! It burns!" She mimed shrinking away from sunlight like Dracula, holding her hands up in front of her face.

_**I didn't remember her name.**_

"Of course not," Lissa laughed.

"_**That was **_**Jesse.**_**"**_

"Thanks for that," Mia muttered.

"_**Yes," I said, smiling. "It certainly was."**_

Janine groaned.

"_**I wish I looked like you," she added with a sigh.**_

"Most people do." Rose grinned.

_**Their eyes fell on me.**_

So did ours.

_**Technically, I was half-Moroi, but my looks were human.**_

Like any other dhampir.

_**I'd blended in well with humans during our time away, so much so that I'd barely thought about my appearance at all.**_

"Uh-huh. I believe you," Christian said.

_**Here, among the slim and small-chested Moroi girls, certain features — meaning my larger breasts and more defined hips — stood out.**_

"Not everyone's focused on that, Rose," snarked Christian.

She gave him a disbelieving look. "Most guys do. That's how I get by." She winked.

He shook his head in exasperation.

_**I knew I was pretty,**_

"Of course you do."

"Your sarcasm, Ozera. I love it," she mocked.

_**but to Moroi boys, my body was more than just pretty: it was sexy in a risqué way.**_

I looked at her, and had to admit she was pretty. But she was young, and headstrong, and annoying, too.

_**Dhampirs were an exotic conquest, a novelty all Moroi guys wanted to "try."**_

"Not all," Christian muttered.

"You're the only one," Rose shot back, voice low and smooth.

_**It was ironic that dhampirs had such an allure here, because slender Moroi girls looked very much like the super-skinny runway models so popular in the human world.**_

Sydney was nodding. So she was like that, one of the humans that wanted so bad to look like Moroi.

_**Most humans could never reach that "ideal" skinniness, just as Moroi girls could never look like me.**_

"I don't know why humans would want to," Adrian said. "Dhampirs and humans, such perfect plumpness." He looked off into space.

I raised an eyebrow. We were stuck in here with a guy who was at least half crazy. Wonderful.

_**Everyone wanted what she couldn't have.**_

Wasn't that the mantra of life? Well, not of my life. Mine was_ They come first._ But it was still an accepted fact of life, if not a mantra.

_**Lissa and I got to sit together in our shared afternoon classes but didn't do much talking.**_

"That's kind of shocking," Rose said, looking to her friend, who nodded. "We usually talk up a storm."

_**The stares she'd mentioned certainly did follow us, but I found that the more I talked to people, the more they warmed up.**_

"That is how it usually works, Little Dhampir." Adrian grinned. She stuck her tongue out at him.

_**Slowly, gradually, they seemed to remember who we were, and the novelty — though not the intrigue — of our crazy stunt wore off.**_

"That'll happen? Really? I'm surprised. I'd imagined kids at our school would be far more focused on that for far longer," Eddie mused.

_**Or maybe I should say, they remembered who **_**I **_**was.**_

"Okay . . ."

_**Because I was the only one talking.**_

Rose elbowed Lissa lightly. "C'mon Liss. You'll have to do this too."

Lissa groaned. "I'll just worry about that then, okay?"

Rose sighed.

_**Lissa stared straight ahead, listening but neither acknowledging nor participating in my attempts at conversation.**_

Adrian _tsk_ed.

_**I could feel anxiety and sadness pouring out of her.**_

"Poor Lissa," Rose said, hugging her tight.

"_**All right," I told her when classes finally ended.**_

"Tough love?" Rose asked herself.

_**We stood outside the school, and I was fully aware than in doing so, I was already breaking the terms of my agreement with Kirova.**_

"Wow, Rose. You're a badass," Adrian complimented.

"You know it!" she returned.

Abe grinned. I frowned.

"_**We're not staying here," I told her, looking around the campus uneasily. "I'm going to find a way to get us out."**_

My frown deepened. Well, it was nice to know their plans ahead of time.

"_**You think we could really do it a second time?" Lissa asked quietly.**_

"Of course we could," Rose said confidently, at the same time I said, "Not on my watch." We stared at each other for a few moments of awkwardness.

"_**Absolutely."**_

"Nice to know you don't have a change in your opinion of yourself in the next few months," Christian said.

_**I spoke with certainty, again relieved she couldn't read my feelings.**_

Lissa looked at Rose with huge doe-eyes. Rose stared back, looking tired.

_**Escaping the first time had been tricky enough.**_

"I would hope," Janine said.

_**Doing it again would be a real bitch, not that I couldn't still find a way.**_

Adrian grinned. "I like the way you think."

Abe smirked and raised an eyebrow, clearly agreeing.

"_**You really would, wouldn't you?"**_

"Of course," Rose answered future-Lissa.

_**She smiled, more to herself than to me, like she'd thought of something funny.**_

"I do that a lot," Adrian told us.

"Smile to yourself or think of something funny?" asked Mia.

"Either. Both. Take your pick." He smiled lazily.

"You really are crazy, aren't you?"

"Yep!" he said proudly.

"_**Of course you would. It's just, well . . ." She sighed. "I don't know if we should go. Maybe — maybe we should stay."**_

"What?" Rose asked incredulously.

Lissa seemed almost as surprised that she would say something like that. At least, she did at first. Then she relaxed, apparently seeing the merit to staying.

_**I blinked in astonishment. "What?" Not one of my more eloquent answers, but the best I could manage. I'd never expected this from her.**_

"You are the pinnacle of poetry, Rose," Eddie laughed.

Rose stared at him blankly. "What?"

He just shook his head, still chuckling to himself.

"_**I saw you, Rose. I saw you talk to the other novices during class, talking about practice. You miss that."**_

Lissa looked at Rose, who shrugged. "It doesn't matter," she said. "You come first."

The Princess appeared troubled by this.

"_**It's not worth it," I argued. "Not if . . . not if **_**you **_**. . ."**_

"You people never finish your sentences!" Adrian complained.

"If we did, we wouldn't be leaving you in such suspense," Rose explained happily.

_**I couldn't finish, but she was right. She'd read me. I **_**had**_** missed the other novices.**_

That earned Rose a pointed look from the blonde Moroi.

_**Even some of the Moroi. But there was more to it than just that.**_

"Rose has layers. How shocking," voiced Christian sarcastically.

_**The weight of my inexperience, how much I'd fallen behind, had been growing all day.**_

Eddie glanced at Rose sadly.

"_**It might be better," she countered.**_

"I doubt it," Rose grumbled.

"_**I haven't had as many . . . you know, things happening in a while. I haven't felt like anyone was following or watching us."**_

"That doesn't mean we should go right back to where it all started!" the dark-haired female exclaimed. Lissa calmed her with a hand on her arm.

_**I didn't say anything to that. Before we'd left the Academy, she'd always felt like someone was following her, like she was being hunted.**_

That worried me. Moroi feeling like they were being stalked was a big deal. They often were, usually by Strigoi. However, from within the Academy, that seemed unlikely.

Fortunately, no one made any snide comments about that.

_**I'd never seen evidence to support that, but I had once heard one of our teachers go on and on about the same thing.**_

"Ah, yes," Eddie reminisced. "Ms. Karp."

_**Ms. Karp.**_

Eddie and Rose laughed.

_**She'd been a pretty Moroi, with deep auburn air**_

"I think that's supposed to say hair," I said.

_**and high cheekbones.**_

"What a weird way to think about a teacher," Christian told Rose.

"What? You've never thought a teacher was pretty? Or good-looking?"

He stared at her. "No."

"I have," Adrian piped in.

"Of course you have," Christian said to him.

Adrian looked like he wasn't sure whether to be proud or offended.

_**And I was pretty sure she'd been crazy.**_

"Oh, great. Compare me to the crazy lady, why don't you," Lissa laughed. Then she paused, realizing maybe she should be taking that comparison more seriously.

"_**You never know who's watching," she used to say, walking briskly around the classroom as she shut all the blinds. "Or who's following you. Best to be safe. Best to **_**always**_** be safe."**_

"Well, she's got a point," Adrian affirmed.

Janine's eyes narrowed at him as she tried to decipher the puzzle he presented.

_**We'd snickered amongst ourselves because that's what students do around eccentric and paranoid teachers.**_

"Unless they're _mature,"_ Janine pointed out.

"Ah, let them have their childhood," Abe countered casually. "It ends all too soon."

"Amen!" Adrian agreed. He pulled out another cigarette.

I heaved a mental sigh, resigning myself to another bout of the scent of cloves and smoke.

_**The thought of Lissa acting like that bothered me.**_

The two girls hugged tightly.

"_**What's wrong?" Lissa asked, noticing I was lost in though.**_

"So much," Eddie joked.

"_**Huh? Nothing. Just thinking."**_

"You do that?" Lissa asked with mock astonishment, breaking into a grin when Rose cuffed her on the shoulder.

"Hush up. Of course I think. I think about what I want to eat next and . . . what I want to eat after that. . . ."

"Very promising," she giggled.

_**I sighed, trying to balance my own wants with what was best for her.**_

Ah, the hardest balance to reach. Many guardians swung way too far to the _"best for her"_ side, and don't think enough about themselves. I had to admit I tended to be like that. And I was kind of proud of it, in a sick sort of way.

"_**Liss, we can stay, I guess . . . but there are a few conditions."**_

Lissa laughed. "Really?" Rose shrugged.

_**This made her laugh.**_

I looked up at Vasilisa. Yes, it had.

"_**A Rose ultimatum, huh?"**_

"Sure," said Rose.

"_**I'm serious."**_

"That doesn't happen often," Lissa noted.

_**Words I didn't say very much.**_

"Well, you two know each other scarily well," Eddie laughed.

"_**I want you to stay away from the royals. Not like Natalie or anything, but you know, the others. The power players. Camille. Carly. That group."**_

Lissa frowned. "O-kay . . ."

_**Her amusement turned to astonishment. "Are you serious?"**_

"Why? Do you have some incredible love for royal Moroi?" Christian quipped.

"No, of course not," Lissa replied.

"_**Sure. You never liked them anyway."**_

"And we have confirmation," Rose touted.

"**You **_**did."**_

"Ooh, Rose. You're the one with an incredible love for royal Moroi."

"You caught me, Christian. I love them all." She made a face. "As if."

"_**No. Not really. I liked what they could offer. All the parties and stuff."**_

"Of course you did." Christian drew out the word _course_.

Rose stuck her tongue out.

"_**And you can go without that now?" She looked skeptical.**_

"Way to have faith, Liss," scoffed Rose.

"_**Sure. We did in Portland."**_

"Yeah. What future me said."

"_**Yeah, but that was different." Her eyes stared off, not really focused on any one thing. "Here . . . **_**here**_** I've got to be a part of that. I can't avoid it."**_

"Sure you can. I do," Christian informed her.

It was funny. Mia wasn't royal, but had strained and worked her way up to being around them, being friends with the most elite. Christian was royal, and could care less. Of course, the same thing that made Christian royal was the thing that made him ostracized. Ostracized Ozera. Huh.

"_**The hell you do. Natalie stays out of that stuff."**_

"Her too," agreed Christian.

"_**Natalie isn't going to inherit her family's title," she retorted. "I've already got it.**_

"So what?" Rose exclaimed. "That doesn't matter. So you'll be that mysterious royal everyone's curious about. That's always cool." Lissa laughed.

_**I've got to be involved, start making connections. Andre—" **_

Rose lifted a handful of Lissa's long blonde hair and looked at it. "Nope, not Andre."

Lissa sighed. "No, just like him."

"Well, not really," Rose countered. "Or we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"_**Liss," I groaned. "You **_**aren't**_** Andre." I couldn't believe she was still comparing herself to her brother.**_

"I never can, and yet she always is."

"_**He was always involved in all that stuff."**_

"Because that's what he liked to do," Rose pointed out.

"_**Yeah, well," I snapped back, "he's **_**dead**_** now."**_

Lissa flinched away from her friend. I suppose it's hard to remember that this is apparently in the future when you hear something like that. Rose looked both shocked that she would say something like that and hurt that Lissa moved from her.

_**Her face hardened. "You know, sometimes you aren't very nice."**_

"Great comeback," Mia cackled.

"_**You don't keep me around to be nice.**_

"Well, I do a little bit," Lissa said, turning her doe-like gaze on Rose.

Rose drew the blonde to her side and hugged her tight.

_**You want nice, there are a dozen sheep in there who would rip each other's throats to get in good with the Dragomir princess.**_

Adrian was still stuck on sheep. "Sheep? There are sheep in— Oh. Okay, I get it."

_**You keep me around to tell you the truth, and here it is: Andre's dead.**_

"Harsh," Eddie commented, not unkindly.

"True, though," Rose defended her future self.

_**You're the heir now, and you're going to deal with it however you can. But for now, that means staying away from the other royals.**_

"In order for you to _remain_ the heir." Rose chuckled darkly.

_**We'll just lie low. Coast through the middle.**_

Eddie laughed. "Good luck with that, guys."

_**Get involved in that stuff again, Liss, and you'll drive yourself . . ."**_

"Again with the not finishing your thoughts," Adrian complained

"**Crazy**_**?" she supplied when I didn't finish.**_

"Yep, I think that's what I was — will be — going for."

_**Now I looked away. "I didn't mean . . ."**_

"Future-Rose has more tact than now-Rose," Janine noticed.

"That doesn't take much," Christian said drily.

"_**It's okay," she said, after a moment. She sighed and touched my arm. "Fine. We'll stay, and we'll keep out of all that stuff.**_

Relieving to hear they would stay, and I won't have to hunt them down twice. Just the once, then.

_**We'll 'coast through the middle' like you want. Hand out with Natalie, I guess."**_

Rose made a face and produced a gagging sound from the back of her throat.

_**To be perfectly honest, I didn't want any of that.**_

"Naturally," said Lissa.

_**I wanted to go to all the royal parties and wild drunken festivities like we'd done before.**_

"Wild drunken festivities, huh?" Janine's eyes were narrowed.

"Sounds great!" exclaimed Adrian.

_**We'd kept out of that life for years until Lissa's parents and brother died.**_

"Thanks for the reminder," Lissa said bitterly.

Rose rubbed her arm, offering her comfort. Lissa leaned into her.

_**Andre should have been the one to inherit the family's title, and he'd certainly acted like it.**_

An air of nostalgia fell over the students. Even Janine became reserved, although I didn't think she'd known Andre Dragomir all that well, nor his parents.

_**Handsome and outgoing, he'd charmed everyone he knew and had been a leader in all the royal cliques and clubs that existed on campus.**_

Mia looked wistful. I was sure she wanted to be like that, with all the fame and glory that went with it. I didn't get it, but hey, different strokes for different folks.

_**After his death, Lissa had felt it was her family duty to take his place.**_

"It's not," Rose sang.

_**I'd gotten to join that world with her.**_

"Lucky you," Christian said sardonically.

_**It was easy for me, because I didn't really have to deal with the politics of it.**_

"Lucky you," Lissa repeated, although she sounded wistful.

_**I was a pretty dhampir, one who didn't mind getting into trouble and pulling crazy stunts.**_

Adrian grinned widely and winked at Rose. "I think we're really going to get along."

_**I became a novelty; they liked having me around for the fun of it.**_

Eddie high-fived her.

_**Lissa had to deal with other matters.**_

"Lucky me," she said drily.

_**The Dragomirs were one of the twelve ruling families.**_

We could all list the royal family names off the top of our heads. We learned them young.

_**She'd have a very powerful place in Moroi society, and other young royals wanted to get in good with her.**_

"I can honestly say I have no particular desire to 'get in good' with you, Lissa," Christian told her.

"Uh, thanks . . . ?"

_**Fake friends tried to schmooze her and get her to team up against other people.**_

"Fortunately she'll always have me," said Rose joyfully. Lissa smiled.

_**The royals could bribe and backstab in the same breath — and that was just with **_**each other.**

"Remind me again: why anyone would want to spend time around these people?" Christian asked.

_**To dhampirs and non-royals, they were completely unpredictable.**_

"Yay." Eddie mimed twirling a noise maker. Or maybe he was spinning a lasso. I wasn't sure.

_**That cruel culture had eventually taken its toll on Lissa.**_

The two girls leaned into each other again. They leaned on one another a lot, I was noticing. Both literally and figuratively.

_**She had an open, kind nature, one that I loved, and I hated to see her upset and stressed by royal games.**_

Sydney cooed softly to herself.

_**She'd grown fragile since the accident, and all the parties in the world weren't worth seeing her hurt.**_

Sydney wasn't the only one cooing at that.

"_**Alright then," I finally said. "We'll see how this goes. If anything goes wrong — anything at all — we leave. No arguments."**_

I looked up and regarded her levelly. She stared back at me with utter conviction. I respected that, even if I didn't like it.

_**She nodded.**_

"Well, at least you finally see the brilliance in my plans," Rose sighed dramatically.

Lissa laughed. "Uh-huh. Brilliance, for sure."

"Don't you doubt my genius, now!"

"Spell genius," Lissa countered.

"G-E-N-I — gen-i-us — U-S! See, I knew I could do it!"

Lissa grinned. "Alright, I concede."

"_**Rose?"**_

"Oooh, my name! Who's saying it?"

"Hush up and we'll find out," Janine said.

_**We both looked up at Dimitri's looming form.**_

"Ooooh. Probably not good, huh?" Rose asked.

I shook my head. "Probably not."

_**I hoped he hadn't heard the part about us leaving.**_

Well, I had now, regardless of whether or not I would have.

"_**You're late for practice," he said evenly.**_

"Well, duh. The question is, how do you find us?" Rose raised her eyebrows. I was pretty sure she was incapable of only lifting one.

_**Seeing Lissa, he gave a polite nod. "Princess."**_

"So formal," Adrian commented with a sad shake of his head.

_**As he and I walked away, I worried about Lissa and wondered if staying here was the right thing to do.**_

"You shouldn't worry about me," Lissa chided.

"I do, though. I always will. And actually, I'm kind of supposed to worry about you. It's kind of my job," Rose replied.

"Not yet," I muttered.

_**I felt nothing through the bond, but her emotions spiked all over the place. Confusion. Nostalgia. Fear. Anticipation.**_

"Very nice, very nice," Eddie chuckled.

_**Strong and powerful, they flooded into me.**_

"That's so weird," Mia said, momentarily forgetting her vendetta against the girls. She simply looked interested, if a little off-put.

_**I felt the pull just before it happened.**_

"Uh-oh," Rose said.

_**It was exactly like what had happened on the plane: her emotions grew so strong that they "sucked" me into her head before I could stop them.**_

Lissa sighed.

"Sorry! But it's not like I really want to be there any more than you want me to be," Rose defended herself.

"I know. It's just frustrating. And our lack of knowledge doesn't help."

_**I could now see and feel what she did.**_

Rose mimicked Eddie's earlier motions. "Yay."

_**She walked slowly around the commons, toward the small Russian Orthodox chapel that served most of the school's religious needs.**_

"Oh, yeah! I miss that church," Lissa said wistfully.

"I miss anything familiar, at this point," Eddie murmured.

_**Lissa had always attended mass regularly.**_

"Even when you were on the run?" I asked, curious.

"No, not then. We couldn't, not always," she responded.

_**Not me. I had a standing arrangement with God: I'd agree to believe in him — barely — so long as he let me sleep in on Sundays.**_

"Very nice," Eddie commented.

I gave her a disapproving glance. Religion was fairly important to me. It was hard for me to hear people brush it off so easily. I knew people did it all the time, but it was strange, since I'd grown up with it being integral.

_**But as she went inside, I could feel she wasn't there to pray. She had another purpose, one I didn't know about.**_

"There's something you two don't know about each other?" Christian asked, shocked.

_**Glancing around, she verified that neither the priest nor any worshippers were close by. The place was empty.**_

"Perfect for sneaking about," noted Christian. Lissa blushed.

_**Slipping through a doorway in the back of the chapel, she climbed a narrow set of creaky stairs up into the attic.**_

"The chapel has an attic?" Eddie asked.

I shrugged. "Sure it does. Most buildings do. At least, most that don't have flat roofs."

_**Here it was dark and dusty.**_

"Well, yeah. It's an attic." Mia wrinkled her nose.

_**The only light came through a large stained-glass window that fractured that faint glow of sunrise into tiny, multicolored gems across the floor.**_

"Very descriptive. And very pretty-sounding." Eddie smiled warmly.

_**I hadn't known until that moment that this room was a regular retreat for Lissa.**_

Christian drew himself up in an indignant way. Apparently there was some sort of turf war going on here.

_**But now I could feel it, feel her memories of how she used to escape here to be alone and to think.**_

"You can never be truly alone. Not from me," Rose said, almost sadly. I guess she felt bad that she deprived her friend of that.

_**The anxiety in her ebbed away ever so slightly as she took in the familiar surroundings.**_

"See, I was just saying I could go for that," Eddie pointed out. "Anxiety ebbing sounds good right about now."

We nodded in agreement. Everyone wanted to be away, but I figured we wouldn't get to for a while. It could take weeks to finish all these books.

_**She climbed up into the window seat and leaned her head back against its side, momentarily entranced by the silence and the light.**_

"Wow, Rose. You are certainly a novelist," Lissa told her.

_**Moroi could stand some sunlight, unlike the Strigoi, but they had to limit their exposure.**_

"That must suck," Eddie said.

_**Sitting here, she could almost pretend she was in the sun, protected by the glass's dilution of the rays.**_

"Aw! Poor nostalgic Lissa." Rose pouted and leaned her head against her friend's shoulder.

Lissa grinned and patted Rose's head.

**Breathe, just breathe, **_**she told herself. **_**It'll be okay. Rose will take care of anything.**

Rose grinned proudly. I assumed she was happy about the confidence the Moroi girl put in her.

_**She believed that passionately, like always, and relaxed further.**_

Rose's grin widened.

_**Then a low voice spoke from the darkness.**_

"Crap. So much for relaxation," Lissa groaned.

"_**You can have the Academy, but not the window seat."**_

"Well then," Rose huffed. "Rude." She paused and cocked her head. "Plus, the window seat is part of the Academy, and therefore should also be hers."

She didn't even know who'd spoken yet, and she was already arguing.

_**She sprang up, heart pounding. I shared her anxiety,**_

"Well, yeah. You have a bond. Her emotions come through to you." Abe raised an eyebrow.

_**and my own pulse quickened. "Who's there?"**_

"Oh, yeah. Smart. Find out who it is," Rose grinned, abashedly.

_**A moment later, a shape rose from behind a stack of crates, just outside her field of vision.**_

"A person-shaped shape, right?" Adrian asserted.

"I assume so," Rose said.

_**The figure stepped forward and in the poor lighting, familiar features materialized.**_

"Okay, so it's someone we know. . . . This is kind of like Guess Who," Rose quipped.

_**Messy black hair. Pale blue eyes. A perpetually sardonic smirk.**_

Rose groaned and glared at Christian. "Really? You?"

_**Christian Ozera.**_

He smirked.

"_**Don't worry," he said. "I won't bite. Well, at least not in the way you're afraid of."**_

"What other way is there to bite someone?" Adrian asked, confused.

Christian shrugged.

_**He chuckled at his own joke.**_

"Of course he did." Mia sneered.

_**She didn't find it funny.**_

"Of course she didn't," repeated Christian.

_**She had completely forgotten about Christian. So had I.**_

"Now, I might expect that from you, Rose, but Lissa?" He _tsk_ed. "I'm surprised by that."

The two girls glared at him.

_**No matter what happened in our world, a few basic truths about vampires remained the same.**_

"There are exceptions to every rule," Rose countered. I don't think she realized she was arguing with herself.

_**Moroi were alive; Strigoi were undead.**_

"No exceptions to that rule," said Lissa

"That we know of," Rose retorted.

_**Moroi were mortal; Strigoi were immortal.**_

"Not entirely true. They only live 'til we kill them," Rose pointed out.

_**Moroi were born; Strigoi were **_**made.**

"And I really never want to see Strigoi start reproducing with each other," I said drily.

_**And there were two ways to make a Strigoi. Strigoi could forcibly turn humans, dhampirs, or Moroi with a single bite.**_

"Don't know why they want to," Eddie murmured.

_**Moroi tempted by the promise of immortality could become Strigoi by choice if they purposely killed another person while feeding.**_

"Don't know why anyone would want to do _that_, either." Christian's face was stony, no emotion showing. It was almost as blank as a guardian's.

_**Doing that was considered dark and twisted, the greatest of all sins, both against the Moroi way of life and nature itself.**_

"And rightfully so, too." Janine nodded. "Nothing like that should exist, and people who would want to . . ." Her eyes narrowed, and I had a feeling that if it wouldn't have been considered impolite, she would have spit on the floor.

_**Moroi who chose this dark path lost their ability to connect with elemental magic and other powers of the world.**_

"Well, yeah. They're dead. Magic is full of life. Those two don't really go well together," Mia said.

_**That was why they could no longer go into the sun.**_

"Because they lost their connection to the elements, or because the path is dark?" Adrian asked.

The group paused, everyone thinking about it. I don't think any of us really had an answer to that.

_**This is what had happened to Christian's parents. They were Strigoi.**_

This wasn't news to me, or most people here, but Adrian and Sydney reacted violently. Sydney drew further back in her chair, and Adrian reared up, eyes wide.

Christian's face grew dark. "My parents don't define me," he spat, glaring.

Sydney looked doubtful, but Adrian hunkered back down.

"That's the end of the chapter," I said, closing the book — with the bookmark in it — and passing it to Adrian.

"Really?" he moaned. "I really have to read?"

"Yes," several of us said in unison.

"We all have to. So do you," Rose told him.

He sighed. "Fine."

Rose stood up. "I'm checking the mini-fridge for food." She trotted over, and we looked over her shoulder as she peered in.

There wasn't a whole lot. It was a mini-fridge, after all. But there was cheese and assorted snacks, and even a couple bottles of blood. Rose pulled herself out some cheese and a bottle of olives, and came back to the love seat she'd been sitting on, happily popping the top off the bottle.

"Ready to move on?" Janine asked.

She nodded.

"Great." Adrian sighed again. "Chapter five."


End file.
